The similar phrase 'Worldly Christianity' is one used by Bonhoeffer. It's J Gresham Machen that I want to line up most closely with. See his Christianity and culture here. Having done commentaries on Proverbs (Heavenly Wisdom) and Song of Songs (Heavenly Love), a matching title for Ecclesiastes would be Heavenly Worldliness. For my stance on worldliness, see 3 posts here.

Easter Apology


I found this Easter apology to TV broadcaster Richard Madeley here

Dear Richard
About fifteen years ago you walked into Tesco, picked up a couple of bottle’s of champagne and left, forgetting to pay. You were subsequently accused of shoplifting but declared not guilty. In spite of this I took great delight in laughing about you with my friends. Being teenagers we found that the mention of your name brought gales of laughter and so you became subject of a cheap gag. Today I feel guilty about that. I’m a 32 year old man with three small and distracting children; a Tesco over the road which I visit almost every day and a rapidly decreasing attention span. These elements have created a perfect storm. Since Christmas I’ve unwittingly taken things out of the shop without paying on three different occasions. On each occasion I have gone back and paid without anyone realising, and on each occasion I’ve gone home thinking of you. There’s no difference between us. We both wandered out of a shop without paying. It was an accident when you did it just as it is an accident when I and a million people like me do it from time to time. So why was I so keen to mock you? One reason is that when I was 15 I lived to make people laugh and you were an easy target. But maybe there was more to it. I wonder if you provoked my sense of justice like a man hitting a wasp nest with a stick. After all you were a wealthy celebrity stealing champagne while I, a school boy, had to buy the things I wanted with money from a paper round. So on some subconscious level I refused to believe that you had just made a mistake. Even when the British justice system got taken in, I knew the truth and I determined that I would not forgive you. Of course that sense of justice is less pronounced now. One day when the inevitable happens and an overweight and red faced security guard collars me and asks me why I’m leaving Tesco with a block of cheese and no receipt, I’m hoping that the staff in Tesco will accept my explanation that I was distracted and forgot. I hope they will look at the children tugging at my coat, the baby sick on my shoulder and the three day stubble on my face and understand. I hope they will go easy on me. That’s the odd thing about Justice. We demand it for everyone else without prejudice and yet when we find ourselves in a similar position we cry out for understanding, leniency even mercy. It’s double standards of course and also impossible to allow in a civilised country. Sometimes, no matter how many tears are shed and apologies made, Justice must be done at the expense of mercy. If that frightens us in this life it should be terrifying when we think of our relationship with God. After all God is holy and cannot tolerate sin and yet none of us is perfect. In fact the Bible tells we have all fallen short of the glory of God. If God is going to be just he will have to punish us for declare us all guilty and separate Himself from us for ever. But God is a loving God and wants to share Eternity with us so he faces a dilemma. On the one hand He must be just but on the other hand He wants to show mercy. It’s in the Easter story that we see this dilemma resolved. In the darkness and violence of Calvary, we see Justice done; a man called Jesus is punished for sin. The amazing thing is though, that the man is innocent! The sin He is punished for is not His own. More amazing still, the man punished is God’s own son! He willingly entered in an agreement with his father that together they rescue sinful people. And so on the cross, God acts justly, punishing sin, so that he may forgive the sin of everyone who asks, in his mercy. I hope that this Easter you will know the forgiveness and Grace of God for yourself. Yours sincerely.
Jonathan
PS Please do not hold your breath for any accompanying apology from me concerning the number of times I have shouted/ cringed/ chewed my fist at the television when you have been on doing your Alan Partridge impression.

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