"I am no stranger to the particulars of your youngest sister's infamous elopement. I know it all; that the young man's marrying her was a patched-up business, at the expence of your father and uncles. And is such a girl to be my nephew's sister? Is her husband, is the son of his late father's steward, to be his brother? Heaven and earth!—of what are you thinking? Are the shades of Pemberley to be thus polluted?"

Austen, Jane; Pride and Prejudice

According to a survey carried out by the National Trust in 2007, 57% of Brits couldn’t name a single great-grandparent, and a further 14% could only name one. Even as the use of Ancestry.com seems to be on the rise, I guess that if a similar survey were to be run now, 15 years later, the percentages would be far higher. The more detached we are from our heritage, the less likely we are to care about polluting the “shades” of our family—in other words, the ancestors who came before us. Whilst this is true of the world around us, it seems as though as Christians we have, in recent years, responded to that by digging deeper into our roots, which is excellent to see. It’s possible though that though we’ve turned our backs on the habits of the world, we’ve adopted a different kind of long-term memory loss. Last week we looked at how the sins of Pride and Prejudice are portrayed, repented of, and how reconciliation was found in the book, this week we’ll look at some of the ways we need to exercise caution to make sure we don’t fall into these sins in the wider Church. With that said, within our own Christian sub-cultures, we often find it hard to find the right balance between drawing up borders which defend our theological positions and defending them so harshly that we end up blocking the entrance entirely. Whilst it’s important that we diligently guard theological orthodoxy, standing shoulder to shoulder with the cloud of witnesses throughout history and the Church universal, we must do all we can to welcome in even those who disagree with us most.

This quote from Pride and Prejudice comes from a discussion between Elizabeth Bennet, the protagonist, and Lady Catherine de Bourgh—the Aunt of Mr Darcy, who Elizabeth will go on to marry. At the time de Bourgh is under the impression that the engagement between Darcy and her daughter—which has been arranged since they were children—is still going to be honoured. Setting aside how strange that might sound to us today, when we narrow the doors of our Churches, so much so that we don’t let anyone else in, we are doing the very same thing. Members of our Church will leave or be married out, and others will marry one another, but eventually, the Church will die. That’s a bleak outlook, but a very real one, we’re not doing our ecclesial ancestors, our theological convictions, or biblical truth any service by excluding the prostitute, the left/right-wing fanatic, or the guy with no idea how badly he knows the Bible, in fact, that’s exactly the opposite of what we’re called to do. How then do we both defend orthodoxy and also make our doors as wide as possible?

Guilty by Association

“I am no stranger to the particulars of your youngest sister's infamous elopement.”

First off, let’s be clear that we need to be sure not to exclude someone based on either their own denominational heritage or even sins committed by others of their background. I spoke with a brother a while back who was explaining why they no longer do ministry with people of a working-class background because they don’t take Church or Christianity seriously, as someone from a working-class background I politely listened, but I was left somewhat dumbfounded. On the other hand, I also come from a long line of Methodist ministers, who probably wouldn’t have thought much of my adherence to Calvinism and Covenant Theology, but I wonder whether the inverse is true, how many Calvinists would shun me for my methodist heritage? A heritage, I will say, I’m happy to have had. I’m currently transcribing my great-great-grandfather’s journal and I’m finding it enriching and encouraging.

Right now there are students all around the world looking to find the Church they will hopefully call home for the next 3-5 years+, if they come from a theological/denominational background you’re uncomfortable with, will you still be happy to invite them to your home group? Are they welcome to study the Bible in your church? Can they join a serving team? Or does the idea of their former associations sting too much?

In 1 Corinthians, Paul tells us:

“Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.”

1 Corinthians 6: 9-11, ESV

• The Sexually Immoral

• Idolaters

• Adulterers

• Those who practised homosexuality

• Thieves

• The Greedy

• Drunkards

• Revilers

• Swindlers

Such could be found among the Church in Corinth, or rather those would formerly have been known as such, and yet Paul’s rebuke seems to assume a short memory amongst them. “But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God,” he says, reminding them that they shouldn’t, upon entering through the heavenly gates, turn around and close those gates behind them. Instead, recalling their former sin, and their former associations, they were to draw such sinners in. I don’t know anyone who was born with a good grasp of theology, nor anyone who upon being saved was instantaneously bestowed with a mental download of Greek, Hebrew, and the Institutes of the Christian Religion. I even heard other Calvinists on several occasions remarking on this phenomenon by half-joking that, “everyone’s saved as an Arminian and becomes a Calvinist as they mature.”

Side Note: I should point out that I’m making jabs at Calvinists because that’s my camp, but wherever you find yourself within the broader sphere of Theological orthodoxy, this still applies to you.

The State of Theology

If all of this is true, then it has an impact on how we react when research like the State of Theology in the US, or the Talking Jesus research from the Evangelical Alliance in the UK tells us that the situation in our Churches looks awful.

In his commentary on 1 Kings, Philip Ryken says this:

“Learn from Solomon’s mistake and apply this lesson to your own life: spiritual gifts will not keep us from sin if we have a heart that is turning away from God. Mastering theology, serving the poor, giving to Christian work, teaching the church—none of these gifts will protect us from spiritual failure if we love the world or love ourselves more than we love God. Solomon was one of the most gifted men who ever lived. If his wisdom could not save him, then how will our own gifts ever save us?”

Philip Graham Ryken, 1 Kings, Reformed Expository Commentary

It’s true, unrepentant sinners—who stick close to their own wisdom and forego the teachings of the word of God in favour of their own glory—these sadly will not inherit the kingdom. To point and say, “thank goodness I’m not them,” is dangerously close to self-righteousness too—if not over the line.1

The truth is that most of us are aware of this, possibly aware of our particular shortcomings in this area, and are on guard against it in our local contexts. When surveys roll around though, the data we’re presented with is so abstract that it pulls us into a place where we are tempted to become judgemental. When that happens, we need to force ourselves to be careful, to think of local church, not the local heretic. Taking the recent State of Theology research as an example, let me introduce you to Luke.

You meet Luke after he recently completed an “introduction to Church” course at your local church, having been invited by a friend of yours. After challenging his hosts, and having been challenged himself, he finds salvation through Christ—knowing he cannot find salvation on his own—he even accepts the Bible as the highest authority for what he believes and has begun to encourage his non-Christian friends to come to Church and to trust Jesus Christ as their Saviour.2

You meet Luke again at a coffee shop and having been a Christian for all of about a week, Luke has some questions. He’s recently been confronted by his old group of friends and he’s found that he doesn’t really know what to tell them. In fact, although he’s given his life to Christ, his opinions on most things haven’t changed all that much, but his friends seem to think they should have.

He talks about how he told them that though we’re born innocent at birth, we all became sinful at some point after that and that after Jesus died God changed his mind towards us and offered us forgiveness through his death rather than through sacrifices! His niece just became his nephew, and though he’s not sure what he thinks about that, he guesses that possibly God made her that way and that his Brother and his Partner, though they aren’t married, aren’t really sinning, right?

He also tells you about a Muslim friend who asked whether he believed God accepted his worship too, and a friend who’d recently had an abortion, and wanted to know what God thought of her. He gave them both what he thought were probably positive answers.

It’s a lot all at once, but you sit back, and you think.

Here’s the question:

Are you happy he’s at your Church?

Luke, according to the State of Theology, identifies as an Evangelical3 but has more than a few errant theological convictions and opinions. I've taken all of these from the survey. Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't relish the idea of this exact conversation, with so many questions all at once, but I've definitely discipled people through all of these things and more, some successfully I guess we’d call it, and few unsuccessfully. I’ve never been aggravated that they’ve come to my Church though, my guess is that you’d be happy too. Let’s accept that everyone in the Church today has thoughts, opinions, and convictions that are wrong. This survey and others like it show that in a way which should both shock us, but also helps us not to grow complacent. We should assume that there are people in our Churches who disagree with the Sunday teaching, don’t know/read their Bibles, or have serious questions but feel embarrassed to ask because unlike Luke they’ve been Christians for 20 years and still no one has discipled them through their thoughts and doubts.

Is our response, “the mission field starts at home,” or, “And am I to accept such a person as a Brother or Sister in Christ? Heaven and earth! Are the shades of the Church to be thus polluted?”

What Then?

I had an excellent conversation last week with one of the older kids in our Sunday School, she’d been uncharacteristically naughty throughout the morning, but after settling everyone down, I asked to speak with her at the main table. While everyone was playing, I asked her how she thought the morning had gone, she relayed to me that she didn’t think her behaviour had been quite right and that she was sorry. I asked her what she should do next, and she replied something akin to:

“I need to ask God for forgiveness, say sorry to you, and ask God to help me be a better example to the other kids.”

It was an amazing moment. She wasn’t proud, or even defensive, she knew what she’d done and she knew what she needed to do. It may be that in reading this article you’ve identified ways in which you’ve been too proud, especially with regards to the outcomes of the recently released research. I would encourage you to take her advice in this situation, to ask God for forgiveness, to apologise whether inwardly or—if necessary—in person to the people you’ve shown prejudice towards, and then as an elder Christian, set an example for other believers.

We defend theological orthodoxy well when our lives are clearly influenced by the teachings we share and believe in, but we can’t do this without God’s help. For that reason, don’t go at this alone, get around others in your church who already do this well, and pray that God would guide you to do the same.

Don’t let the shades of your Church be darkened by the shadow of your pride, rather, take the light of Christ with you into every conversation and situation.

Grace and Peace,

Adsum Try Ravenhill

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This past weekend I went to a festival celebrating the life and works of Jane Austen. Though, as I mentioned in a recent article called Revisiting Dracula, I was given false impressions about her works by an English Teacher as a teenager, I was recently reintroduced to her books and was deeply affected by them. After the Dracula article, my Father-in-Law asked me to write a similar article about Pride & Prejudice, which I hope this will be. Austen was a woman who through both her life and her fiction sought to love and honour God.

Here are some photos from the day

One of the ways in which Jane Austen did this, was by being personally and theologically honest about the sinful nature of man. Across her books, there is not a single character without fault—or sin—and each one bears some degree of the consequences. Austen doesn’t stop here though, though she might have easily painted a picture of a fallen world, she also gave us a taste of redemption. This is profound, not all authors do this, in an interview we hosted with Karen Swallow Prior about the book Tess of the D’Urbervilles, Prior said something which stuck with me:

“[Thomas] Hardy paints a world with no grace in it, it’s like he gets almost everything right except Grace, because if there had been grace, if he believed in grace, if his characters had access to grace, the ending could’ve been so different…but we know Grace, and we know that this is the message that we can offer, we can pick up where Hardy left off and say, but God”

The Grace of God in a Fallen World - Tess of the D’Urbervilles with Karen Swallow Prior - S1 Ep 11

In her book Pride & Prejudice, Austen unsurprisingly wrestles with those two sins. In a quote I might have used more than any other in this newsletter, Mary Bennet, the little sister of the protagonist of the book, Elizabeth Bennet, says the following:

"Pride," observed Mary… “is a very common failing, I believe. By all that I have ever read, I am convinced that it is very common indeed; that human nature is particularly prone to it, and that there are very few of us who do not cherish a feeling of self-complacency on the score of some quality or other, real or imaginary.”

Jane Austen - Pride and Prejudice

This is, with regards to these particular sins, as good a description of the doctrine of total depravity that any of us could hope to come up with. If all of us, then, are prideful and prejudiced beings, flawed by nature, and prone to failing, what hope is there?

Austen’s answer: Repentance, reconciliation, and relationship.

Longbourn and Pemberley

“I cannot forget the follies and vices of others so soon as I ought, nor their offences against myself. My feelings are not puffed about with every attempt to move them. My temper would perhaps be called resentful. My good opinion once lost is lost for ever." [said Darcy]

"That is a failing indeed!" cried Elizabeth. "Implacable resentment is a shade in a character. But you have chosen your fault well…your defect is a propensity to hate everybody."

"And yours," he replied, with a smile, "is wilfully to misunderstand them." [replied Darcy]

Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

There are many players in the story, but most either belong to or are associated with two families, the Bennets and the Darcys. Each one possesses a different status in society, the Bennets being of lower birth and without a direct male heir, and Mr Darcy, having been orphaned, inherited a humungous fortune which in today’s money would amount to about £601,497.00 a year.

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Put simply, Mr Bennet thinks he’s better than everyone in his intolerable family other than Elizabeth, Lydia Bennet might as well think she was carved out of marble and brought to life by a fairy, Mary Bennet stands aloof above all of her other siblings intellectually, Caroline Bingley uses everyone around her like pedestals to step on and raise herself up, Lady Catherine de Bourgh—Mr Darcy’s Aunt—only condescends to those who will bow in deference to her in return, and it seems, at the worst of times that Elizabeth Bennet and Fitzwilliam Darcy both possess a mixture of the worst traits of each of their respective households.¹

By the time the conversation I quoted takes place, each has had ample oppurtunity to get to know one another, and they’ve chosen, because of their pride and their prejudice, to pick only the worst parts they can find.

In the book Humble Calvinism, Jeff Medders says:

“The times when we believe we are better than our brothers and sisters in Christ, because we don't sin or struggle like they do, we believe our own propaganda. We hit the power button on the personal hype-machine of our hearts--but the fine print reads, "Hypocrite."

Jeff Medders, Humble Calvinism

What is fantastic about the book at this point though, is that because we have been viewing the story through Elizabeth’s eyes, most readers find themselves agreeing with her. Mr Darcy is pompous, he has grossly mishandled situations, and he’s been unfair and unkind. So when we later find out that he’s more complex than that, that just like Elizabeth, who we think of favourably, he is sinful, but isn’t being so intentionally, we have to face the brunt of his conviction too.

"And your [sin]," he replied, with a smile, "is wilfully to misunderstand them."

How often do we do this, someone cuts us off on the motorway or says something curt, or a new person at church makes a crass comment. Do we think, “Well, first impressions last,” and let that be it?

It’s so tempting to think about the doctrine of Total Depravity and just how true it is of others, without understanding not only that it also applies to us, but also that it’s not meant to be a reminder that we’re sinful and then left alone, but that it should lead us personally—and as the church—right the way to the cross to repent.

What we’re able to do then in Pride & Prejudice is go through the process of understanding the doctrine on safe grounds, come to terms with our own pride and prejudice, especially towards Mr Darcy, and then “repent” of it along with Elizabeth.

Fiction has a way of helping us to deal with things, to learn truths which are uncomfortable and even harsh wake-up calls without us feeling put upon.

Coming Together

I have been a selfish being all my life, in practice, though not in principle. As a child I was taught what was right, but I was not taught to correct my temper. I was given good principles, but left to follow them in pride and conceit.Unfortunately an only son (for many years an only child), I was spoilt by my parents, who, though good themselves (my father, particularly, all that was benevolent and amiable), allowed, encouraged, almost taught me to be selfish and overbearing; to care for none beyond my own family circle; to think meanly of all the rest of the world; to wish at least to think meanly of their sense and worth compared with my own.

Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice

The above is a section of Mr Darcy’s confession to Elizabeth before the end of the book. Each party has not only recognised their fault by this point but they’ve been unable to find an occasion to say so. Finally, a conversation takes place. Each acknowledges both the hurt they have caused the other, the sins they struggle with, as well as what essentially amounts to repentance through confession. Neither is faultless, and they are both aware of that, but equally, each is able not only to forgive but also to love the other.

This is an example for us as believers of how to act in the face of conflict with one another, be honest, sincere, confess our sins, and understand the sins of our brothers and sisters, and then love one another. Jeff Medders puts it like this:

“The realities and reminders of Total Depravity don't puff us up--they humble us. They make us sympathetic, empathetic, and loving.”

Jeff Medders, Humble Calvinism

When we think about dealing with conflict in the church often we think about Matthew 18:16-17, starting with “But if he does not listen, take one or two others along…,” but we often forget that the previous verse, which this passage cannot exist without says this:

“If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother.”

Matthew 18:15, ESV

That is best case scenario sure, but it’s not one we should skip over in our Bible reading. In fact, we should be hoping and praying that in every case, this is the outcome. In the case of the book, when Elizabeth and Darcy finally reconcile, it sparks off a chain reaction in which the other members of the family begin to deal more kindly with one another too. Mr Bennet, who had nothing but indifference for Mr Darcy begins to like and respect him, and even Lady Catherine de Bourgh, who had previously written heinously regarding Elizabeth upon their marriage, was able, through love, to come around.

Repentance, reconciliation, and relationship are not only the three stages of dealing with conflict stoked by sin in the book but in the Bible. This isn’t because I’m reading it back into the Bible, but because that’s where Austen first read it. You don’t get Pride & Prejudice without the word of God, and repentance at the end of the day finds its final destination in God’s welcome embrace.

Whatever the sins of your own life, whether you need to go to another in your life and ask them for forgiveness, remember, as my final point, that you must ultimately take the doctrine of Total Depravity seriously, not so that you can feel awful and shameful about your sin, but so that you can be reconciled with the Father, through the Son, and by the Spirit and come into relationship with him.

Grace and Peace,

Adsum Try Ravenhill

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