An Unbridgeable Chasm

I watch in amazement at the flurry of activity that has followed the (now vanished) blog post about Michael Horton and Rick Warren. The poster of that has now as good as said that people should be warned about Michael Horton because he has been at Saddleback and was photographed with Rick Warren. The substance of what Horton said has, to be best of my knowledge, never been addressed by this person, or any of her partisans.

Now, first of all we need to separate any response to the post made by others to the content of the post itself, and the defences that have been mounted. I have no part in actions others may have taken, this is what I have said, in public, responding to vague accusations made in public. The accusation seems to amount to this: Michael Horton spoke at an event held at Saddleback, and was photographed with Rick Warren afterwards. This means that he is acting as a 'Bridger' between the Reformed world and Rick Warren.

Now, when the term was used of Dan Kimball, I thought I understood what was meant - that Kimball had a foot in each camp, a foot in the Emerging camp, and another in the broader Evangelical camp. Fair enough, I suppose you could argue that he is a bridger in that sense. But if speaking at a conference that is part of a parachurch organisation (not, as some have said, "shared the pulpit with Warren", which implies a Saddleback service), and being photgraphed with a man makes one a 'bridger' whom the Church must be "warned about", then we are being amazingly narrow.

Others have tried to take the focus off Horton by bringing in John Piper - but Horton and Piper are not in the same circles, Horton teaches at Westminster Seminary California, and is a confessional Reformed man. Piper has said Rick Warren is basically sound, Horton has said he isn't. I understand that people are worried, disappointment with Piper led to fears about Horton. But those fears are being expressed irrationally. It seems that some of Horton's critics will not be satisfied with anything short of Horton expressing a sort of second-degree separation, and simply cannot conceive of anyone going to anything like the Lausanne conversation unless they approve of everything that goes on there. The idea of a man going to such a thing therefore alarms them.

And how is this defended? By saying "well, people will assume he approves." My friends, do we really think that Reformed Christians are that shallow and foolish? That they base their opinions on pictures and reported facts? Or are not Reformed people readers, people who listen to multiple podcasts? Are they not in fact the least likely Christians to be led astray by a picture taken out of context?

And what is the alternative? Let me tell you what it is. It's giving up talking to people outside of our own little bubble. It's making absolutely sure that our message never troubles people in the Warren camp. And the result of "warning people about" Horton will be awful. After all, What are we warning them about? What is the content of that warning? That's what I can't see. Really, I cannot see the content of the warning about Michael Horton! And that worries me.

A Plea for Discernment (2)

In the previous post I called for us to make the main thing the main thing, and not to go off on side issues, let alone our own hobby-horses. The trouble with our hobby-horses is that all too often they are not the issue at all - as witness the case I referred to in the last post, of the radio presenter who used the film The Golden Compass as a jumping-off point for a discussion of the influence of the occult on children's literature, when the central message of the book on which the film was based is in fact atheistic. I drew the conclusion from the programme that the presenter came with her own ideas, rather than letting the film actually dictate the programme content - which is a serious problem when one is supposed to be discussing the film!

Of a rather similar nature, in my opinion, was the attitude of Ian Paisley towards Donald Soper when Soper visited Northern Ireland. Soper was a theological modernist and arch-liberal, yet Paisley decided to criticise Soper for wearing a cassock, a garment he associated with Rome. Now, whatever one thinks of cassocks, one should agree that what Soper was wearing was of far less important than what he was saying! We have to make sure, when we criticize someone, that we keep our sense of perspective - what a man says about the atonement is far more important than what he may wear while saying it! Once more, whether the present Archbishop of Canterbury is or is not a member of the Gorsedd of Bards is not one half as important as his declared and public theology.

And, while I'm on the subject, about the celebration of Christmas. I have no problem with our brothers who refuse to celebrate it. Just, please, don't call me 'pagan' for it. After all, there is nothing pagan in getting up early and going to the chapel to proclaim that God has given his Son as a saviour for the world. Nor is there anything pagan in going there. We shall not be making sacrifices to Osiris, or anything of that sort.

A Plea for Discernment

With the first part of the adaptation of the last Harry Potter book hitting the big screen, the Christian media (and particularly the fundamentalist portion) is full of claims that this is encouraging the occult. Now, this is not a defence of Harry Potter, or a condemnation. It is a plea for us to get beyond simplistically attacking the mere fact that the books and fils use the imagery of magic and witchcraft, and to address what is behind these trappings.

A few years ago I was treated to one of the worst, most superficial Christian responses to a film that I have ever heard (naming no names). It was supposed to be a response to the film The Golden Compass (remember that?). Now The Golden Compass was an adaptation of the first book in Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy. While using the genre of fantasy, complete with magic and witches, Pullman's books are in fact designed to teach atheism, and he is quite explicit about this. Yet this review treated the film as though it was occult propaganda. It seemed that the reviewer was unable to get beyond the trappings of the novel to its core message. I was deeply embarrassed by the review, and I have to say that I have never listened to the podcast in question since. Why? Because the review was utterly superficial, and there are more substantial things one could listen to. There was the problem, you see. Now it seems to me that to say of the Harry Potter stories, "The involve people who do magic, therefore they are bad" is on the same level. It simply fails to engage with the stories at all. Now you may say, "Christians ought not to engage with worldly entertainment", but if you do, then that is reason enough not to engage with Harry Potter without invoking a superficial argument about witchcraft. If you are going to try to say that it is all right for Christians to watch secular films and read fiction, but that they ought not to have anything to do with Harry Potter, then you need to actually offer substantive reasons.

The books and films do not encourage children to participate in the Occult, for in Harry Potter's world magic is something you are born with. The divide between the magical and the non-magical is absolute and unbreakable. Harry Potter has magic powers because he was born with them, just as Clark Kent has the powers of Superman because he was born a native of the planet Krypton. No character in the Harry Potter books acquires magic powers, they possess them by virture of their birth. Thus J.K. Rowling has actually done all she can to depict magic as non-transferrable. Secondly the magic in the books works 'mechanically', without the invocation of spirit-beings. Magic is not a religion in Harry Potter, it is a super-power, like Superman's X-ray vision, but with the trappings of English folklore. Unlike Spider-Man's Peter Parker, Harry Potter did not get his powers in an accident. Nor did he gain them by his own ability. He got them from his parents, like Superman. Thus, at least in J.K. Rowling's mind, the world of Hogwarts is necessarily separate from the world of her readers.

For this reason I am unconvinced by the argument that Harry Potter encourages dabbling in the occult. There are shows and films that do that, as well as books. So a critique of Harry Potter must go behind the stylized, fantasy magic and address the actual messages of the books. That I do not intend to do - merely to challenge Christians to think about content, and look beyond trappings. Otherwise we shall make ourselves look foolish, and may even find that we are ourselves doing the right thing for the wrong reason - and in such a way as to fail utterly to make the case for others doing the right thing, as in the case of The Golden Compass. And by the way "It's just not my sort of thing" is a thoroughly good reason for not doing something!