Blenheim Palace

I had a great afternoon at Blenheim Palace on Saturday, listening to Doug Wilson talk about

• The gospel and your church
• The gospel and your family
• The gospel and your government.

It is worth getting the recording, once it’s made available at Canon Press. David Field has, in the past, recommended the free software Audacity for speeding up audio recordings, allowing you to listen to MP3s of talks in less time than they take live. Most of the time, that is really useful – a large room full of people requires a speaker to slow down more than you need with earphones on your own. In this case, however, you’ll need to use Audacity to slow him down. As Dick Lucas would say, he was going “like an express train”.

Which meant that my notes were patchy. Fortunately for me, David was there and somehow managed to take far more thorough notes than I did – you can read his notes on his blog. They are an excellent summary of the content of the 3 talks. They are not a substitute for listening yourself!

I particularly enjoyed:

• His demonstration that the oft-cited cultural difference between Americans (outspoken, controversial, fighting-spirit) and Brits (timid, withdrawn, a little sensitive) is entirely unfair. Not hard to find examples where we are quite the other way around. Rather, it is a poor excuse for the fact that the UK church has been house-trained by British society. We are “like a dog that has been trained not to pee on the carpet” rather than an unstoppable reforming force. John the Baptist, in the UK, says that it’s OK for Herod to have his brother’s wife.
• The fact that he started with the question “What is the gospel”. It is not less than personal salvation hinging on our personal trust in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, all according to the Scriptures (1 Corinthians 15). But that does not mean there is no more to the gospel. (He had to start there, given the misplaced criticism he’s had back in the States that he has denied personal salvation by faith alone in Christ alone.)
• Being made to think – creation of the new Eve from the side of the new Adam
• The insight that evangelicals often react to good liturgy done lifelessly by writing our own “that look as though they were written for a small child’s birthday party”.
• The church is not just another club – much like the stamp collecting club – only this one meets on Sundays and happens to (delete as appropriate): like hymns, likes the 5 points of Calvinism, etc. Far more than that – God’s means for reforming the world.
• Hold onto the twin truths that we are to honour our Father and Mother, love our wife, husband, children – and yet hate them also. How so? Kill off our family as number 1, and love Jesus as number one instead. Then when we stop loving them in the wrong way we can start loving them in the right way. The big irony: You short-change your wife when you make her number 1, because she would be loved more if you were connected to the source of all power and love.
• The distinction between male/female and masculine/feminine, and the fact that someone can assume a masculine role in some relationships (e.g., Jesus towards his bride, the church), and feminine in others (e.g., Jesus as he relates to his Father has some feminine characteristics). One pressing need for today is for men who know how to act well in those relationships where a feminine demeanour is called for.
• The link between the public, civic nature of the death of Jesus and the fact that loyalty to him cannot be limited to the private, domestic arenas.

• Why is it that every political / religious / ideological group wants their God to run the country. Except Christians. Who want one of the other gods on the table to do it!?