Warning: This post contains spoilers. Go read the book. Now.

Many people owe a debt to Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird. My wife and I owe several. I began life as a high-school English teacher remembering Mockingbird as the first book to really light up under the eye. Walter Cunningham’s playground attack on innocent-children-dressed-as-seasonal-vegetables gave me my first jolt of effective gothic horror. I never wore a zucchini suit again without regularly checking my blind spots.

My wife became a lawyer after a twenty-year mental apprenticeship to Atticus Finch (and some hundreds of episodes of Law & Order). Atticus Finch has turned so many children into lawyers that he ought be either thanked (or tried) for it.

Together, my wife and I bestowed names of both author and character from Mockingbird upon two of our children, including one child called Finley Gillies Atticus Crosweller – a name so baroquely Southern-rococo-excessive that Harper Lee might laugh in approval.

Point is, we adore To Kill a Mockingbird. When Anna Funder wrote in the Herald that she feared Harper Lee might suffer damage from a second book, I thought she was being over-cautious. I could not see how Lee could hit a bum note. Mockingbird was so musical, so playful, so well-judged in tone that I couldn’t see her putting a foot wrong. After reading Go Set a Watchmen I am still not sure she has put a foot wrong, but she has certainly put them all over the good furniture.

Go Set a Watchmen commits a number of offenses against contemporary mores. You would think it could be forgiven for this, since it is not contemporary. But Watchman hits notes so weird and strange that dogs would struggle to hear them. They set to make more than one human howl.

So what are the three sins of Harper Lee? One is literary (this one is a real sin), one is historical (this one is a real eye-opener), and the last is philosophical (this one is for our good).

The Literary Sin: ‘Her uncle was out of character’

Go Set a Watchman begins extraordinarily well. It seems impossible to think that the book was written before Mockingbird, for it picks up in tone right where the subsequent book leaves off (bends the mind, doesn’t it?). Reading Lee’s prose again I was struck by the economy of line. Or rather, the mixed economy of line. Long, loping sentences are laid out by sharp, witty jabs.

Home was Maycomb County, a gerrymander some seventy miles long and spreading thirty miles at its widest point, a wilderness dotted with tiny settlements the largest of which was Maycomb, the county seat.

The landscape rolls by languidly. Then you are rocked in your seat:

If you did not want much, there was plenty.

Kapow!

Lee’s love of small-town landscape are here again too. The making of Maycomb really bellows to Mockingbird, but even without its influence I would happily stop for a sandwich.

Astute observations of social and cultural mores remain. The harrowing of Anglican and Methodist hymnody in chapter 7 is perfectly tuned (unlike most hymnody), and worth the price of admission alone.

So where is the literary sin? It is that Lee abandons her characters.

At first, they are painted so precisely. Atticus’ famous fob-watch is augmented by a wristwatch – to compensate for the times when his now arthritic hands cannot access his vest-pocket. He still speaks silence like soliloquies. Scout has become an adult Jean-Louise, but if her fire might be thought to have sensibly gone out by adulthood, no-one told the woman shovelling the coal. Lee keeps her steaming all the way into station. A character I don’t remember from Mockingbird, Dr. Jack Finch, is introduced. He is Atticus’ brother, Jean-Louise’s uncle, and is critical to the story. He is well-drawn at first – a small-town doctor, who has spent at least as much time cultivating an eccentric love for obscure Victorian literature as he has on dressing small-town wounds.

And then here’s where it all goes wrong. Page 226. Here the novel loses its way. From here on out it is all talk. The novel gives way not merely to dialogue but to a thinly-masked Socratic dialogue. Characters disappear. Eccentricities begin to go unnoticed. Jean-Louise’s finely-balanced wit is gone. Atticus speaks in platitudes. Admittedly, he has done so before, but damn it, they used to work! It’s all ideas, ideas, ideas!

In novels the best ideas are character-full. But Socratic dialogues work by putting one difficult idea into a false drama of multiple, thin characters. It does not matter that they are characters – their job is not to be real people but to simply throw an idea back and forth until the idea is brought to a satisfactory resolution. From page 226 the difficult idea is thrown back and forth to the point where it achieves a resolution wholly unsatisfactory.

Late in proceedings Jean-Louise says ‘For the second time in her memory, her uncle was out of character.’ By this point, he really is. He has literally run out of it. What is left of him is less character, than position.

I would read this book again and again for its first half. The first two-hundred pages are as good as any in Mockingbird. I settled into it with delight. I just didn’t expect Socrates to sit down at counter in Maycomb and gab for so long.

More fool me, given Lee’s hero is Attic by name. I guess we had it coming? Nonetheless, it jars badly.

A Historical Sin: Being Historical

This is a real eye-opener. The central idea of Watchman is a historical analysis of the process of segregation and integration that will make even a contemporary Dubois blanche. I shook as I read.

Barack Obama introduced the 50th Anniversary screening of To Kill a Mockingbird with these words:

It still speaks to us, and it still tells us something about who we are as a people, and the common values we all share. (Barack Obama, April 5th, 2012)

But Watchman does not speak of this at all. Watchman highlights exactly the unshared values that threaten the unity of the people.

The central philosophical idea of the book is how to put up with people who believe things that make us want to vomit, and not merely put up with them, but love them.  More on this in a moment, for it sounds almost fine until you hear the historical particular.

In detail, the idea is whether we can tolerate racists. Jean-Louise finds Atticus sharing a platform at a citizen’s council with a seriously crazed racist segregationist, Grady O’Hanlon. Atticus introduces the man to the council and passes no comment upon a tirade of racist vitriol. We see our greek-named literary god falling before our eyes. It is awful to behold. Jean-Louise speaks for us when she says to Atticus, ‘Yes sir, I’m upset about something. That citizen’s council in’ you’re doing. I think it’s disgusting and I’ll tell you that right now.’ (page 238)

To our shock, the Socratic dialogue of Watchmen – the difficult idea – does not resolve in Jean-Louise’s favour, but in Atticus’ and Hank’s and Uncle Jack’s. It resolves in favour of a go-slow path out of segregation. There is even a patronising little vignette at the last where Jean-Louise, who has been bumping into things all over Maycomb in her out-of-placeness, ducks into a car and for the first time doesn’t bump her head. Point? She has learnt ‘accommodation’. She leaves enough give-room.

This turns all our readings of Mockingbird on their head, and our worship of Atticus.

C.S.Lewis once said that it is good to read old books,

C.S.Lewis is right. The very strangeness of Watchman’s worldview means it is impossible to accept it as simply as we did Mockingbird. We read Mockingbird as of-our-culture. Watchman gives us no illusions. Maycomb is foreign country to us.

This is a real eye-opener.

A Philosophical Sin: Tolerance beyond toleration

But where Watchman becomes important, for all its literary inconsistency and historical awkwardness, is its entirely contemporary investigation of the philosophy/theology of tolerance. It is a really good point, made in the worst possible way. The questions stands, ‘How do you live in the presence of people you violently disagree with?’. Jean-Louise imagines living in Maycomb among her opponents and says,

‘What on earth could I do? I couldn’t fight them….’

Uncle Jack outlines the matter at hand to Jean-Louise like this:

‘I don’t mean by fighting; I mean by going to work every morning, coming home at night, seeing your friends…teh time your friends need you is when they’re wrong., Jean-Louise. They don’t need you when you’re right…’

Uncle Jack has a point. What do you do with people you violently disagree with?

Resort to violence? Certainly not of any personal kind. Of course, where the law is against an opponent the violence of a forced removal from society is entirely consistent with our polity. But in this case the law was not against the racists. What do you do?

Most readers of Watchman who have found the courthouse racism beyond bearing have not had to face the question. They have had the luxury of being able to resign their racist enemies back to Lee’s 1950’s.

Uncle Jack had an answer. He resolutely calls his opponents his ‘friends’, and works, lives and socialises among them. It is not a platitude. He is seeking change without belligerently knocking over people. It is at least an answer.

Let’s push things forward. If homophobia is the new racism (as I am often told), what will people do if they conclude that someone is homophobic? How could they live with them? Let’s define homophobic here not as an utterly beyond-the-pale vilifier of gays, but as plain ‘can’t quite agree with all of contemporary sexual political doctrine’.

It is still quite lawful to not fall into line on all matters of sexual-political doctrine (the law could hardly keep up with its’ doctrinal changes anyway) – but again, if this is the ‘new racism’ what are people to do? Uncle Jack says, “So watch ya going to do now, Jean-Louise? Watch ya going to do with the mildly offensive conscience-driven homophobe?”.

At least he has a non-coercive answer to this, and it is because he was reading not only from the book of Jim Crow, but also from the book of Matthew and it’s ‘love for enemies’. His answer is confused, but at least he has one. I am not sure the critic’s of the book have one at all.

Where there is no answer to that question, the question of free conscience, there will be force. And that is why the final sin of Watchman is entirely for our good.

But Lee has broken too many commandments, and no good can come of it.

Nothing focuses the mind like decline. It is a common rule that as football injuries begin to happen to middle-aged men and begin to heal more slowly, their desire to go running also quickens. Of course, it is not uncommon to find this new habit creates still more injuries that heal even more slowly and only hasten the decline. Decline may focus the mind, but it does not always lead to the best of strategic remedies. As churches struggle in a society that is either indifferent or antagonistic to Christianity, we become more and more precious about our churches. We are acutely aware when they are lame, slow, old, conservative or irrelevant. But when we feel worried about the future of churches, and worry much about church, we choose etch wrong strategic remedy. You see, we are quickly persuaded that we need a church-centred approach to growth, rather than a gospel-centred approach to growth. We need to fix our churches more, and more, rather than communicate the gospel. I think that anxiety causes a very simple and understandable mistake. At the centre of the error is a confusion regarding church and evangelism. If evangelism and church are the same thing, then success in one is success in the other. But I hope to show this understandable thought is an error and show the results of this error. But if you find that analysis a little dry, hand in there, because what I really hope to do in this post is give a renewed vision for evangelism beyond church.

An Understandable Error

The relationship of church and evangelism is confusing by nature because the relationship is so very close. It seems obvious that church and evangelism are intrinsically linked. They are. The evangel (gospel)  is the gospel which creates and grows the church. The church always co-exists with the evangel (the gospel). Take the gospel away and you may have a church-like building or even a church-like community, but it is not the church of Jesus Christ. Consider three obvious truths about the closeness of the gospel and the church:

• The deepening of a gospel-shaped life is what the church enjoys as the key reality beneath all church activity (Col 3:14)
• The proclamation of the gospel is what the church does now and will do in eternity and for eternity (Rev 5:12)
• The demonstration of the wisdom of God’s gospel is what the church shows by its existence before the hostile powers and authorities (Eph 3:10)

So we see that the church exists only by the gospel, and only where the gospel remains. Church and gospelling (evangelism), go hand in glove. However, despite the closeness, we cannot make the hand the glove and we cannot make the church evangelism. Evangelism happens in church, for sure, but it also often exists outside the gathering, borne by scattered individuals as they bear the evangel. And it does not always create a church either. This is clear in two places among many.

• The gospel produces opponents, and not always churches (Mark 13:9-13)
• The gospel is veiled to the perishing, and cannot make churches of them (2 Corinthians 4:1-3)

Clearly, evangelism does not only exist in churches and it nor does it always produce churches. So you can see that the relationship between church and evangelism is close, but they are not the same thing. Evangelism is the instrument by which the church exists, but the church is not the only instrument of the evangel. Confusing the two is an understandable error, but it is an error. So when we think of how Christianity might grow, and even flourish, we must stop thinking always about church. We must think more of evangelism, and less of church.

The Results of Error

I have lived all of the following three unhappy results of this error of church-obsession. I have seen evangelistic pace slow, flexibility decline, and confidence in the gospel dim. How has the error produced this? 1.Church-obsession has made us slow My observation is that where church and evangelism are not understood in both close relationship and right distinction from each other we will want to always take the church out for a walk in the world when we should be taking the gospel. A church is a heavy thing to carry on your back when you need to move light and quick. Before you can step out the door you must launch a website, create a service roster, and when you do step out you need to keep the stepping out co-ordinated together because you are, after all, a crowd. Paul is often regarded as a model church-planter. But Paul painfully shucked off churches even though he loved them in order to go elsewhere with the evangel (Acts 20). He was an evangelist, and his evangelism planted churches. However, he often left churches for the sake of evangelism. There is a cost to church-life in being an evangelist. We might well remember the reckless shepherd who leaves ninety-nine sheep in open country to pursue the one (Luke 15). I think from memory that this is recommended by Jesus as good shepherding. In contrast, the confusion of evangelism and church produces a cumbersome, slow mission. It also reduces our flexibility.

2. Church-obsession has made us one-dimensional

For all the talk of new churches, and hip churches, and churches for this and for that….a church is a church a church is still a church. As long as we are comparing churches to churches we are amazed by the difference between the café church and the Church of High Liturgy. But when we allow other instruments of God’s mission into the picture we see a dazzling range of flexible alternatives in evangelism. When we stop only thinking anxiously about our churches, we think immediately of the beach missions of Scripture Union, Young Life clubs, outreach to seafarers, ISCF groups in schools, transport workers outreach, Catholic-focussed evangelism, Crusaders study camps, street outreaches, cross-cultural bridge-builders, University missions. An array of evangelism has historically happened without church being the giant that carries the mission! It is interesting to me that much of our discussion around cross-cultural ministry has been around whether we should plant culture-specific churches. This seems an end-product question to me. Why not just begin cross-cultural evangelism? But cross-cultural church-planting enters the discussion early whenever church, and not the gospel, has been made the main vehicle of evangelism. Our desire to refashion church in ever more interesting expressions is like listening to music on a very narrow bandwidth. We have, in fact, become more one-dimensional in evangelism than we realise. Our diversity of churches simply masks the fact that we now have less diverse ways of doing evangelism.

3. Church-obsession has made us confident-in-community, and less confident-in-the-gospel

I believe our very likable confidence in church as the mission-bearer has hidden our lack of confidence in the gospel as the mission-bearer. There is something essentially safe about doing mission by sitting next to your brothers and sisters. As we tinker with church promotion and communication strategy we feel edgy and on the verge of evangelism. But nothing could be more safe than redesigning a church to be more missional. I want to question whether our obsession with church might indicate a faint heart about sharing an unadorned gospel, by ourselves, without mates sitting next to us? In short, I believe our confusion of church and evangelism has made us slow, one-dimensional and under-confident.

Evangelism and the Church

Now we must state some positive paths. It is clear that churches can be more intelligible to their culture and more missionally-focused in their gatherings and life, and should be. That is good. But we need much more to recover a vision for evangelism where the load carried is as light as the gospel message, and feet can move swiftly because they are not keeping step with a congregational crowd. Where this happens, there is a simplicity to evangelism. After all, you have little present but a person and the evangel! There we can be confident of a trust in the evangel as the means of mission, for there is simply nothing else there to put the trust in! Such evangelism nourishes the church. The church cannot do without such evangelism, as it simply labours slowly under the weight of tasks and logistics. What the church should do is teach such evangelism. It should commission its evangelists and send them out. And it should not ask them to take the whole church with them. It should ask itself to pray for them, and send just enough as to support. It should be ready to assist when people come to church, and work hard to be clear and loving then. But we have to get church out of the way a little.

A Call to Evangelists and Partners of Evangelists

If you are an evangelist, do not clutter your calendar with church-building activities. Your evangelism will build Jesus’ church better than anything else you could do. If you are not an evangelist by gifting, then don’t engage in overly-long conversations about how we could make our church three-thousand percent better with evangelists. Don’t let that suck all the oxygen from evangelism which begins so far away from church that what church is or isn’t doesn’t matter so much. Instead, be a partner of evangelists – pray for them. Encourage them. Let them talk about it, and for heaven’s sake, let’s talk less about church.

Divorce is a terrible thing for anyone to go through, but frankly, the thing that really gives a pastor the heebeegees is remarriage. Divorce breaks your heart, but the question of remarriage in the scriptures cracks your head open and pours molten lead inside. What is a young pastor to do?

Traditional answer in Anglican churches: send a form to the bishop, have a short phone call of an imprecise nature, and get the approval back – a thing called the ‘Decree Nisi’. Problem solved.

Problem is, I’ve done this more than a few times, and almost every time I have felt we have handed the responsibility between us like State and Federal Governments. In truth, the bishop almost always defers to the pastor (for good reason seeing they are on the ground), and you the pastor say to yourself ‘it needs a bishop’s approval’ like it is really him making the decision about whether to remarry people.

Q: What’s going on?

A: Voldejudicium (Fear of judgment). Don’t correct my Latin if you went to a tie-wearing school).

In Harry Potter, no-one can say the name Voldemort, because he is scary. Of course, great irony, Voldemort can’t talk about death because he is scared of death. Volde-mort = fear of death. We have volde-judicium. Fear of judgment. For us this means that no-one says the word divorce much, let alone remarriage. We can say we don’t do it because it’s all to hard, but then we inevitably end up shuffling papers between our office and the bishops, sometime. It’s a terrible affair, so say divorce as little as possible, and by every means, never say remarriage. No-one told John Woodhouse.

This year at a Moore College Priscilla and Aquila Conference ex-principal John Woodhouse presented a paper called ‘Divorce and Remarriage: an expiration of my understanding of what the Bible teaches on this issue’. Catchy title. I was not there for the conference, but received the paper from a friend. I am astounded I can find no serious discussion (make that any discussion) on the web. This is a paper that should not be quickly archived.

The basic summary is that

1. divorce and remarriage are not prohibited in general in the Old Testament, for we find no general legal ruling on them but more a description of their existence, and at most a regulating of only the worst excesses around them.

2. that Jesus does not overturn this, but strikes a blow to the heart of people who take divorce lightly, and calls people who divorce for remarriage ‘adulterous’. Surprisingly, the New Testament continues to not generally prohibit either divorce or remarriage.

3. the result is not a legal prescription for pastors, but a call to wisdom & discernment surrounding people’s relationships

4. Divorce and remarriage are real options in a wide variety of cases

This is a terrible summary, for which I apologise, but the fact that it runs well outside the traditional Sydney Anglican line which can stomach in its public discourse divorce and remarriage only in light of Jesus’ exception clause for ‘marital unfaithfulness’ and Paul’s privilege for the spouse of an unbeliever who leaves the marriage, suggests the paper warrants some serious discussion.
Perhaps this is happening and I cannot find it. My more serious summary of the article in a form readily useful for pastors and congregations members is found at http://www.stjohnsmaroubra.com/resources_ministry_papers.html

I am not sure whether the paper is publicly accessible yet, but it has certainly been circulated among Ang
lican ministers. Can anyone say what the state of play is?

A week ago in Maroubra we marked a great work in the life of two dear brothers, with the baptism of Nathan Dunkley and Peter Orenstein in a  baptismal font wrought from a sandstone cliff by a million winds, as many waves & the design of God – Mahon Pool.

 Here are their stories of the great change God wrought in their life. It is my pleasure to record it for them so they and other friends might hear them.

We start with Nathan’s story:

I am 26 years old. I am an engineer. I am a cavalry officer. I like skiing and hanging out with mates. I am selfish. I am a sinner. I stuff up. I am sanctified. I love God and believe Jesus is King.

I grew into a teenager with a strong background in the Christian faith. I believed in God, prayed and sometimes followed him. As I became more independent, I was given decisions to make, and I tried to make them so that they would have the best possible outcomes – for me. I finished highschool and started university, making lots of friends and having a good time. I was faced with decisions about faith, social life and academic life. I knew God was there in the background, but I made my decisions myself. I often made decisions that were selfish, and yet did good for others also. I enjoyed myself, sometimes knowing I was sinning, other times not. Most of the time I had a lot of fun. All the while that I was living like this, I had slowly drifted further away from my faith. However this faith was still in the background. I have a strong group of supporters: my family, particularly my parents, my beach mission family and my Christian friends. These people provided subtle encouragement over a very long time, getting me involved with things that I had neglected for a time, such as beach mission and church. More importantly than this, God was in the background, working in my life through the Holy Spirit, gently nudging me back onto his path. I realized that what I was perceiving as good fun (drinking and partying a lot, breaking rules or causing trouble for a laugh) were ultimately not satisfying. As I matured, I realized that what joy I did have in life, was that which stemmed from my dwindling faith. Over time, and with the help of my supporters, I was encouraged to slowly start going to church again, get involved with ministry and put my trust in God. I had a renewed hope in Christ. This hope stemmed from the immense grace God has for me, willing to forgive me for living selfishly, in the past and in the future. His gift of grace and hope gives me great peace of mind; that I can stuff up, yet He still loves me. When I finished uni, much to the anguish of my father, I wasn’t in any particular rush to find a career job. However when I did start looking, I was fairly nervous about finding something. However my hope in Christ gave me peace of mind, that God had a plan for me, and things would work out in his way and in his time. This was a huge comfort for me, and as I do now have a great job, I know that God can be trusted with these, and much greater things.

My journey was slow, difficult at times, fun at others. It had many ups and downs, but for the majority of it, was lived in ignorance and selfish desire. Knowing Jesus has freed me from this self obsessed life, and given me a clear direction and way forward in life. I want to live my life as Jesus wanted me to, and it is with your support that I will take this next step in my life.

Ph 4:13 “I can do everything through him who gives me strength.”

nathan (left), Pete (right)

Pete’s story follows:

I’ve always known about God, how he sent Jesus to take the blame for our rejection of God, and I’ve always known that all I have to do is confess with my mouth and believe with my heart that Jesus is Lord of all and that alone will make me a christian. However, there are a couple of key events that brought me to be baptised today.

I attended a watersports camp in the summer of 2004. I was that cool kid standing up the back of tent, not wanting much to do with the ‘serious stuff’. During the 3rd night of the camp, the pastor taught that you have to know God rather than just know about God. At the time, this simple message struck a few cords with me. He explained that if you would like to start a relationship with God then the camp leaders can come pray for you. I was far too scared to go up the front to be prayed for, but as others started going down I mustered up some courage and went. I remember it vividly – a small marquee with the camp leaders praying for people one by one. I was getting nervous as they were getting closer, and once they rested a hand on my shoulder to pray for me, I burst out crying. There on my knees, I joyfully wept. I came to the realisation that God wanted me to lay down my own agenda and let Him and His word shape the way I lived. This was the night I started to commit my life to be a life of knowing God rather than knowing about God.

What did that mean for me at the time? I would like to say a lot, and that I lived a life dedicated to obeying the commands God gives us through the bible. However this was not the case. Soon after the camp, I lived a life of two paths. One path was letting God take the lead and the other was lead by my own desires. In effect, I was shutting the door on God because I wouldn’t let Him into my whole life, and thus I became, for the most part, a christian only on Sunday’s.

Within those 10 years, from 2004 till the present, two major events awakened me from my double life.

The First:

Life in New College was great, I met heaps of awesome people and I spent many hours and nights having lots of fun. However, not letting God be the ruler of my entire life resulted in a downward spiral. Like many collegians, I loved the party college life. However, it was a life focused on my own desires. I started to hurt the people around me, while feeling very little responsibility for their hurt. It took a brave friend of mine to call me into her room one day. She told me how I had hurt both her and some people around her and that I should wake up to myself. At that point in my life, I knew I wasn’t living the life that God wanted me to. I was the boss of my own life and God wasn’t. However it didn’t change anything long term, I just kept living a life of two paths.

The Second:

Halfway through 2011, a friend was hospitalized due to a mountain biking incident that involved his femoral artery almost bursting. Long story short, the doctors managed to save his life. I went to see him in Gosford hospital, as I was already driving home to Tamworth, however I was hung over and dehydrated. I started to feel a bit sick so I asked the doctor were the bathrooms were. I then remember opening my eyes to five doctors looking at me asking me a million questions, while attaching a neck brace. Quite a shock. The doctors found that I had a few health issues including a benign brain cyst and a minor heart condition. The cardiologist told me that I couldn’t drink for 6 months and as a seasoned binge drinker it shook me. It was at this time that I thought long and hard about my life. I was heading down the road that did not satisfy. I remember talking to my parents that night and I saw once again the love and forgiveness that stemmed from their life. It was solely because they let God take the lead. Simple as that. It was from this point in my life that I let God and His word take the lead over my life. It is only now that I have experienced the joy of living a life lead by Christ. His forgiveness and undeserved love shapes the way I live everyday. Running my own life was incredibly fun and I don’t regret the experiences I had, but I know that it doesn’t lead to fulfilment and joy. It may lead to happiness, as I experienced, however this is a fleeting emotion that doesn’t satisfy. Life is harder now than ever, I constantly struggle with my selfish desires, however God is the rock in my life that is shaping me day by day. I’ll leave you with a bible verse that has helped me remember that I must let God be the leader of my life.

Romans 12:1-2 “Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. 2 Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.”

That’s it! by their own words.

It was a pleasure to be there. May God bless you both, Pete and Nathan, and fulfil your promises with his faithfulness.

This post follows the last, which claimed that we should not pray prayers of vengeance such as ‘Strike my enemies’ (Psalm 3:7) as Christians against other people, but we can and should pray them against the evil done by persons, and certainly against our true and great New Testament enemies: the world, the flesh, sin, death and the devil.

Get up! Get up, and I’ll knock you down again!

I want to push further on praying them against persons, in the sense of praying against their evil. Back in 1861, Julia Ward Howe wrote these words one dark night in a Washington Hotel,

My eyes have seen the coming of the glory of the Lord,He is trampling out teh vineyard where the grapes of wrath are stored,He has loosed the fiery vengeance of his terrible, swift sword,His truth is marching on.

Who was marching on with the truth? Answer – the Union Army who sung this sung to recruit soldiers and motivate them against the armies of the South. Why? In 1890, George Kimball of the 2nd Infantry Battalion of the Massachusetts militia, wrote:

We had a jovial Scotchman in the battalion, named John Brown. If he made his appearance a few minutes late among the working squad, or was a little tardy in falling into the company line, he was sure to be greeted with such expressions as “Come, old fellow, you ought to be at it if you are going to help us free the slaves”

The Union Army really were strongly motivated by a desire to free the Republic from the institution of slavery.

Now, here’s the rub. If someone got up in church next week and prayed that God would by any means free Thailand of sex slavery, and judge those who profit from it, we would say a loud ‘Amen’. But surely this is exactly what the singers of the Battle Hymn were doing?

It is a ‘Strike my enemies’ kind of prayer.

The only difference is the Union soldiers were goign out to do the striking and asking God to help them. Well, that does happen in war and there is no point being shy about asking for God’s help is you pray that what you do is just and right.

What does this mean for us?

I think we ought first pray for blessing upon our enemies as Jesus teachers (Matthew 5:44). But if our brains can cope with two things at once, there is no reason to pray that God would not judge them also and restrain their evil. We pray not for our vengeance, but for God’s justice. We pray this hoping we see clearly enough to call for such judgment but mindful that we may not see clearly and may be horrible and vengeful people who should pray the plank out of our eye first before we pray the speck out of our enemies eye ( Matthew 5:3-5). The Union soldiers ought to have sung this prayer hoping they fought for righteousness and justice, but with some right doubt about their purity. This hoping doesn’t mean not praying or singing prayers of justice, it just means praying hoping in the rightness of God’s answer! And we can certainly hope in that.

So, check your heart when you pray ‘Strike my enemies’ about the evil of other people. First pray for God’s mercy and their blessing and repentance and change. Second, pray that you would not be guilty of the same things. Third, if evil continues – cry out to God for justice swift and even terrible like the mad psalmists do – because it is always a good thing when evil is stopped. Always.

By teh way, would you like to hear all the lyrics from teh Battle Hymn of the Republic? Take a dose of this:

Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord;He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored;He hath loosed the fateful lightning of His terrible swift sword:His truth is marching on.

(Chorus)

Glory, glory, hallelujah!

Glory, glory, hallelujah!

Glory, glory, hallelujah!

His truth is marching on.

I have seen Him in the watch-fires of a hundred circling camps,

They have builded Him an altar in the evening dews and damps;

I can read His righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps:

His day is marching on.

(Chorus)

Glory, glory, hallelujah!

Glory, glory, hallelujah!

Glory, glory, hallelujah!

His day is marching on.

I have read a fiery gospel writ in burnished rows of steel:

“As ye deal with my contemners, so with you my grace shall deal;

Let the Hero, born of woman, crush the serpent with his heel,

Since God is marching on.

 

He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat;

He is sifting out the hearts of men before His judgment-seat:

Oh, be swift, my soul, to answer Him! be jubilant, my feet!

Our God is marching on.

 

In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea,

With a glory in His bosom that transfigures you and me.

As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free,

While God is marching on.

 

He is coming like the glory of the morning on the wave,

He is Wisdom to the mighty, He is Succour to the brave,

So the world shall be His footstool, and the soul of Time His slave,

Our God is marching on.