Christ is Risen: The world below lies desolate
Christ is Risen: The spirits of evil are fallen
Christ is Risen: The angels of God are rejoicing
Christ is Risen: The tombs of the dead are empty
Christ is Risen indeed from the dead,
the first of the sleepers,
Glory and power are his forever and ever
St. Hippolytus (AD 190-236)

*****

O God,
Who for our redemption gave your only-begotten Son to the death of the cross,
And by his glorious resurrection delivered us from the power of our enemy:
Grant us so to die daily to sin,
That we may evermore live with him in the joy of his resurrection;
Through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
Who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
One God, now and for ever.
Amen.

(Book of Common Prayer, 16th century)

Yesterday I had opportunity to speak in the city to a small group of Christians and ‘seekers’ on the theme of ‘Resurrection as History.’ Apologetics and apologetic argument is not something I am very familiar with, but I enjoyed the occasion and had some good conversations after. The meeting was sponsored by City Bible Forum, who do a good job of bearing witness to Christ amongst city workers. Here is the introduction of my short talk…

*****

Nobody saw the resurrection. There were no eyewitnesses. There is no description of the resurrection in the New Testament. The idea is extremely counter-intuitive: everybody dies. Everyone. And they do not come back. The sheer weight of human observation and experience from time immemorial provides a weighty counter-argument against the early Christian claim concerning the supposed resurrection of Jesus.

This weight of evidence, taken for granted by many in the modern era, has weighed heavily also on the minds of many Christians in the last couple of hundred years, to the degree that many Christians today accept a subjective account of the resurrection. That is, rather than claiming the resurrection as an objective event that occurred in history, in time and space, external to the mind and experience of human persons, and independent of them—something that actually happened irrespective of their knowledge of it and-or response to it, they claim that the resurrection is a symbol or a metaphor that explains the impact that the historical person named Jesus had on them. He died—but they came alive! He was gone, but his impact, example, ethos and teaching lives on. They cannot escape the sheer weight of his compelling personality—it is as though he were still present, still with them, still speaking with them and guiding them through their remembrances of him. And so stories of resurrection emerged, were constructed, to give symbolic representation to this compelling experience of the livingness of his example, impact, and teaching. The resurrection is understood in terms of myth: a guiding image or story that helps people understand their world and their experience.

This interpretation of the resurrection sits easily with the modern world. It bypasses difficult questions concerning the rationality of believing what can only be described as an utterly unique kind of miracle, or an absurd and silly superstition. It locates the resurrection, not in the objective world of space, time, fact and history, but in the subjective world of value and belief. In so doing it neuters the resurrection—if in fact the resurrection of Jesus did literally occur as an event in time and space, history and fact. A literal resurrection has immense implications that challenge the very core of modern and postmodern identity, culture and life.

So the question: Objective or Subjective? Did the resurrection occur in time and space? How can we know? Can historical inquiry help us to determine the answer to this question? In the time remaining I will highlight two lines of evidence traditionally maintained by the church through the centuries which testify to the probability that Jesus was literally and physically raised from the dead. There is no rocket science here, but a simple reiteration of what the church has affirmed since its earliest days. To this I add a third line of evidence which has been asserted in the last 200 years or so in the face of continuing historical criticism of the traditional account. Finally, I will conclude with a few observations of where the real battle lies.

A couple of days ago I marked the second anniversary of this blog. Over the last two years I have posted 252 posts on all kinds of topics, using a variety of styles. I have no way of tracking which have been most popular or most read. But here are ten that I have enjoyed the most. They are in no particular order.

1. This first post was not written by me, but by one of our students at Vose Seminary: good stuff! Gunkel, Bultmann and Barth Walk into a Bar

2. The second post came from reading Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice again. This time I read the two critical introductions that accompany the novel in the Penguin Edition, and discovered that being a reader always involves interpretation – whether of Jane Austen or of Scripture: On Being a Reader, Even of Scripture

3. My studies in Psalms 9-11 were particularly insightful for me. My reflections here became the basis of a paper I later presented at ANZATS. An Ethics of Presence and Virtue Part 1 and Part 2

4. I include a little auto-biographical info in this one, and reflect on one of my adolescent heroes: We are All Bohemians Now

5. Our students at Vose are a constant source of inspiration and provocation (in a good and useful way). This post had its genesis in a Facebook discussion on the “Vose Students” page. Facebook theology is a good thing: Alive & Powerful: The Old Testament as the Word of God?

6. Eberhard Busch is a renowned Barth scholar and biographer. His large biography of Barth is not really a biography as much as an exposition of Karl Barth’s remarkable life. I read it from cover to cover for the first time during my sabbatical and recorded my reflections in three parts: Karl Barth – A Remarkable Life Part 1, and Part 2, and Part 3.

7. I have written a number of formal reviews of books on the blog. This one was one of the better reviews. It is to be published in Colloquium  some time this year: Book Review: Reformed Theology (Allen)

8. Another book I read during my sabbatical, or at least started then, was Roger Olson’s The Journey of Modern Theology. This is a big and well-written exposition of the major shifts and trends in theology from the eighteenth century to the present. Olson uses the image of a “ghost” to describe the powerful and ongoing influence of Hegel in modern theology. I discuss it in “No Worldless God!” The Ghost of Twentieth-Century Theology

9. Recently a student who enjoyed one of my units in theology also complained: Theology is too Hard! This was my response to him.
10. Other posts from time to time include a little humour, criticism of various theological positions, some social comment, notable quotes, book notes, etc. One of the things I have enjoyed is discovering some poetry. I haven’t included much of it here, but here are a few examples: Preaching the Atonement with John Donne; or at Christmas, An Advent Poem, or finally, An (Unrequited) Love Poem.

Hope you enjoy revisiting some of these!

Two years, 252 posts, somewhere in the vicinity of 153,030 words (allow a margin of error of a few thousand), and many, many hours, maybe more than I anticipated.

When I started this blog, I did so for myself rather than for any putative readership. Of course I hoped for readers and hoped that not only would some people find my writing interesting enough to return, but that some might even find it helpful. Whether that is the case, I cannot say. Certainly I do not get many comments, but from what I can tell, the trend in the last few years is that people on rarely comment on blogs nowadays. Even bloggers who used to have quite a number of commentators now report far fewer. There are exceptions, of course. Some, such as Scot McKnight, Rachel Held Evans, and Roger Olson seem to have maintained their following over the years.

Google Analytics tell me I get between 750-900 visitors most months, but of that, only 25-35% are return readers. The rest could well be robots, or so someone told me. My son has told me that from time to time I have had nasty hackers attacking the blog, but I am totally oblivious to such things! Still, I am heartened by the number who apparently return – blessings on you!

My purpose in starting the blog, as I stated earlier, was for me: to record some of my own thoughts in digital format, to keep some book notes and Scripture studies, and mostly, to develop habits, skills  and content in writing.

How have I gone? All in all I am quite happy with how the blog has developed. The backbone of the blog has turned out to be Scripture studies, which I try to publish most Sundays. I started with Psalms and only got to Psalm 11, but have had a short newspaper piece published from my studies of Psalms 9-11, have delivered a paper at a national conference on these Psalms, and aim to write it up for publication in an Australian journal. The editor of the journal has not seen it yet, but has encouraged me to submit it.

I started my James posts to contribute to an online bible commentary which started with some enthusiasm but now has fallen into a hole. I don’t hold much hope for that project which is unfortunate; I think it could have been a blessing. Still, I kept my word to the editors and finished my commentary on James 1, and it is on the website – one of the few finished chapters last time I looked. I have been encouraged to continue my study through James, and who knows, maybe in time I will be able to publish a “commentary for preachers” or something similar. Tell you what I have learned, however: I am not a professional New Testament scholar! Tell you something else: I have been very deeply challenged by this intensive, extended engagement with James.

My studies in Bruce McCormack’s work also resulted in a paper delivered at ANZATS last year. It needs more work, but I would like to publish it. I have also written several formal reviews which will be published in Australian journals in the near future,as well as a number of posts on matters of interest to me especially to do with the nature of Scripture, hermeneutics, theological interpretation, Karl Barth, and novels.

Will I continue to invest time and energy in this? Is it worth it? I find I am not as disciplined as I would like to be in getting my reading noted and reviewed, mainly due to time pressures and because I am a slow writer. The main thing I wanted to do was develop habits of regular writing, and the Sunday posts especially, have helped me to write thoughtfully, regularly, systematically and with focus. I intend to continue this work.

I have not been as successful in applying this same kind of rigor with respect to theological topics. That will be my aim in the next year: to become more focused on some particular writing projects that may then develop into something more substantial. I guess that may limit the appeal of what I do, but hopefully will help me become more fruitful in this work as a ministry and as an academic pursuit.

Again – to those who visit from time to time, perhaps even regularly: thank you! I hope that what I do may continue to prove worthy of your time and attention.

On Thursday I will post a list of some of the best posts from the last two years, a Top Ten of sorts…

Almighty God, who are ever present in the world without me, in my spirit within me, and in the unseen world above me, let me carry with me through this day’s life a most real sense of your power and your glory.

O God without me, forbid that I should look today upon the work of your hands and give no thought to you the Maker. Let the heavens declare your glory to me and the hills your majesty. Let every fleeting loveliness I see speak to me of a loveliness that does not fade. Let the beauty of the earth be to me a sacrament of the beauty of holiness made manifest in Jesus Christ my Lord.

O God within me, give me grace today to recognise the stirrings of your Spirit within my soul and to listen most attentively to all that you have to say to me. Let not the noises of the world ever so confuse me that I cannot hear you speak. Suffer me never to deceive myself as to the meaning of your commands; and so let me in all things obey your will, through the grace of Jesus Christ my Lord.

O God above me, God who dwells in light unapproachable, teach me, I beseech you, that even my highest thoughts of you are but dim and distant shadowings of your transcendent glory. Teach me that if you are in nature, still more are you greater than nature. Teach me that if you are in my heart, still more are you greater than my heart. Let my soul rejoice in your mysterious greatness. Let me take refuge in the thought that you are utterly beyond me, beyond the sweep of my imagination, beyond the comprehension of my mind, your judgements being unsearchable and your ways past finding out.

O Lord, hallowed by your name. Amen.

(John Baillie, A Diary of Private Prayer, 73, adapted)

The Christmas mystery has two parts: the nativity and the epiphany. A deep instinct made the church separate these two feasts. In the first we commemorate God’s humble entrance into human life, the emergence and birth of the holy, and in the second its manifestation in the world, the revelation of the supernatural made in that life. And the two phases concern our inner lives very closely too. The first only happens in order that the second may happen, and the second cannot happen without the first…

The birth of Christ in our souls is for a purpose beyond ourselves: it is because his manifestation in the world must be through us. Every Christian is, as it were, part of the dust-laden air which shall radiate the glowing epiphany of God, catch and reflect his golden Light. Ye are the light of the world—but only because you are enkindled, made radiant by the one Light of the world. And being kindled, we have go to get on with it, be useful.

Evelyn Underhill
(English mystic, 1875-1941)