Hello and welcome to the Speak Life Podcast. My name is Glenn Scrivener. So glad to have your company. We've got a treat for you today. We've got the Reverend Dr. Paul Blackham speaking to us about church and the pandemic. You are not going to want to miss his wisdom. I have loved this episode perhaps more than almost any other Speak Life podcast we have ever done. And we've nearly done 350 now. So do stay tuned for that. But can I just ask for a favor first? Um have you subscribed to this uh podcast on the Podcatcher of your choice? We would love it if you would uh actually hit the subscribe button. And if you like us, could you give us a five-star review? That really helps us to get seen, whether it's on Apple Podcasts or Spotify, or wherever it is that you get uh your podcasts from, a five-star rating and even a little review would uh go a long way in helping us to get seen further afield. Uh but without further ado, here is my conversation with Paul Blackham, a pox on all our houses. And I start the conversation by asking Paul how life is for him at St. Crispin's, his church in Highbury, North London.
SPEAKER_00On the one hand, I find with non-Christian people we've had quite good conversations, particularly as the months have gone on, because there's that awareness of our frailty, the fragility of life, and we've increasingly known people who have died, who are seriously ill, all those sorts of things has gone on more and more. And just this sense of really the Psalm 90 stuff, the Isaiah 40, all flesh is grass. And and although some people would say, oh, well, it's not like bubonic plague, it's not like you know, half the population of Islington's dying. No, but psychologically, we're not used to dealing with a situation where we might be very seriously ill or die um like that. It's not really been on the people's radar. So psychologically, although you know, medically it isn't like a the bubonic plague, in a way, psychologically, it's had a very disproportionate impact on people generally, I've found. So there's that and that. So that's quite uh, we found that quite fruitful in terms of being able to talk to people more seriously than say the year ago. So there's that. Um for the Christian, for Christians in our church family, it's been a real challenge because, and I think we've all experienced this journey where like at first there was a kind of um uh spirit of we're gonna get through this, let's keep going back like in March, April, May, June. And then there was this feeling like we're gonna come out of this, and then people, but then there's a oh, it's locked down again, and then locked down again really hard. And I'm finding now, like a lot of the church family are really struggling, um, just with the sense that a lot of the just human resources are gone, and we're having to now kind of dig a little bit deeper, and we're sort of, I find, getting into these questions about, you know, let's wait on the Lord and renew our strength. And it's sort of forcing us to, I think, having to go a bit deeper than we previously had done, and it's exposing that. So, and how do you keep church family together when, in some cases, some members of our church family, we've not really had proper physical contact with them because they're more vulnerable and staying at home. We've not really had physical contact in a direct way for months and months, other than just very like at the garden gate, sort of kind of thing. So that's what it is for us. It's constantly evolving challenges and the kind of solutions we might have had six months ago, we'll they're not quite the same now, and we've had to evolve that.
SPEAKER_01Yes, yes, we've gone through many different stages. I often kind of think of it like if I physically was stuck in a room to begin with, I'd try to make the best of it, wouldn't I? And I'd, you know, here's my opportunity to write a novel. I'm gonna sit down and you know, write a great novel or whatever. And and then you'd get angry and then you'd bang on the door and you'd demand to get out once you'd once you'd had enough, and then you'd probably slump in the corner because having banged on the door, you know, incessantly and not being let out, now comes the depression. And it seems like societally, that's kind of the phases we've gone through. You know, in in first lockdown, we were all trying to write the great novel, or we were trying to, you know, learn how to bake sourdough bread and and all these kinds of things. And then we got very angry. Um, Dominic Cummings was, you know, one sort of flash point and right. And yeah, but with lockdown three, it seems we're we're moving from the from the anger to the to the slumping in depression kind of thing. Um very very much because I I don't think we have had a a proper sense of the duration that this that this pandemic is going to go for. I I think we all thought, oh, we'll lock down for three weeks to flatten the curve and then we'll say bye-bye COVID-19. Um, but that's that's a foolish or at least that's a that's a naive way of looking at things, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00I think it really is. And I think there was um like uh because with a sense of of history behind us and church history and things, like there have been plagues that have like shut down nations in one way or another for uh three, five, six, ten, fifteen years sometimes, where measures have been in place and people have been distancing and all kinds of things, and church outdoors and all masks, all loads of things. Those things have gone on for years, and I can't I've sort of said to people, Well, what you know, because people might say, Well, what if what if the government's still imposing measures on us in what if it's another year? I'm saying it could be another two or three years. That's history, that's life, that's what it's like. You know, that's not the big story for me.
SPEAKER_01And and it's it's that sense of I think is this a tiny little mosquito-like um irritation in which case the government is bringing you know a sledgehammer to to crack a nut. Um or is it this like apocalyptic thing that's going to end life for all humanity, in which case the government's not doing enough? Um, we really really need to get a handle on what plagues really are. So, Paul, help us biblically. Um, what are plagues and what is God saying to us through plagues?
SPEAKER_00I mean, that's it, because you've expressed it really well though. Because on the one hand, I'm cut ministers, I mean, the government's getting it like just as you said, you should be doing far more, or you're doing far too much. And you sort, and we look at the government, we're like, uh, no government in the world gets, I mean, every government is basically getting that, and then half of them are pointing at other government, you should be doing it more like that government over there, and then they are like it's not anyway. Yeah, so the government's like that, ministers are feeling it. Ministers are getting that too, where members of the congregation, you should be doing far more, should be doing far less, all that sort of thing, and it's because it is the nature of a plague all the way through history, because we get used to uh things in a particular way, and what the plague does, and it doesn't even really matter, like a bubonic plague, that's massive, and Justinian's one, half the population of the Roman Empire wiped out, um, crazy big. Um for and in a way, the I always think the Lord maybe had to send a massive like plague of that dimension to shake that world with the massive certainties of the Roman Empire and the Persian Empire, and they are these absolutely colossally stable things with this sense that they're gonna last a thousand years. Whereas for the modern world, it's a lot more fragile and and a smaller plague has uh a much bigger impact. So, what the purpose of plagues, they're always from the Lord, and that's the thing to bear in mind that sometimes when I'm praying about it, and I and maybe me, others and things are saying, oh Lord, Lord, will you stop this plague? But I have to be careful praying like that. I mean, it's an understandable prayer, you know, of course, but if I'm just stepping back a little bit and thinking biblically, people don't really do that in the Bible. The prophets, Moses, I mean, Moses doesn't say, Lord, will you stop these plagues on Egypt? It's rather he announces them, yeah, but he doesn't he doesn't think he wants to get in the way of them because that's what the Lord's doing, because he's bringing something about, he's shaking Pharaoh and Egypt and doing something which would be about church and uh people becoming Christians and joining an Exodus and escaping slavery, and then the prophets all the way are saying the Lord's gonna bring this plague, locusts or earthquake, or it could be earthquakes, it could be famines, it could be an invading army of people or insects or but you know, germs, viruses, but it's all these things, and there's that bit, isn't there? Is it in Zechariah where the Lord sends out these four angels to have a look at the world? And the message back is hey, everything's really peaceful. Um, yeah, it's really good. The world's at peace, everything's calm, and then the Lord says, Now I'm really angry. Why is he angry? Isn't that what he wants? The world to be all calm, peaceful, secure, locked down, every not locked down, but um everything, everything nice and calm and secure and everybody at peace. And the Lord's like, no, that really upsets me because that is delusional. Because if the big picture that the Bible presents us is right, that we are exiled from the life of God, we've been driven out from the presence of God, and we are dying, whether we know it or not, and our lives were just like a vapor, a weed that grows up in the morning, then it's gone. And then beyond that, when we when we die and we pass into eternity, as we might say it, we have no home, we have nowhere to go but an outer darkness, we are unsafe, we're hated by civilization in the heavenly sense. We are exiles, bandits, criminals that have to be shut out and exiled, and we have nowhere to go. And yet, if we are living in this sense of, oh, life's great, I just, you know, I'm just saving up for retirement. I'm not wanting to play golf, I I I'm gonna catch up on my next bot Netflix series, I'm gonna do this. And the Lord looks at that and says, You're just so contented, and yet you're in eternal terms, just moments away from eternal destruction and hell and wrath, wrath, anger, terror, all these things. And so the Lord, it's like when Jonah is sent to Nineveh, and the Lord says, Listen, I've got a message for you, um, total destruction on Nineveh. And then Jonah's like, Oh no, I don't like the Ninevehites. Well, we would go, Well, that's good then, innit? Because there's a message of destruction. You should love it if you don't like the Ninevehites. And Jonah's like, No, no, they see you don't get the Lord. So when he does this, it's because he's bothered about them. Yeah, it proves that he's bothered about them. He doesn't want them to just carry on and all perish eternally. He's gonna shake them up with trouble, and then it's only because he wants to save them. I want no part of it, yeah. And it's that amazing thing. Jonah doesn't want the plagues to be poured out because he doesn't really want the Ninevehites to be saved, but the real God of the Bible, all the way through the prophets and the apostles, it's in Revelation, these vials are poured out by the lamb on the throne who's in charge of all things. And the the book of Revelation is educating us to look at history and say there's wars, there's famines, there's earthquakes, there's plagues. That is not a sign that the world's out of control, but that a sign that it's under control and that the that heaven is making its presence felt, even in this wilderness. We're in a wilderness far away, and the Lord is making his presence felt, and he's shaking us up, he's waking up. So, in that Zechariah thing, when the the angels report, everything's nice, everyone's healthy, every peace around the world. Now I'm really angry, get out there and cause trouble.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_00That's my little version of that. So that's the thing with plagues in an odd way. I don't know whether I've got I I would really pray it, but there's an almost a sense in which we give thanks and praise for it because it means the Lord is He's still in business with the world, he still cares about the world.
SPEAKER_01Because in a way, the worst thing, yeah, yeah, the worst thing, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00Is if he said, No, I don't care, you just do what you want, just what you want. But he's like, No, no, I I I need to shape the world up, and so he does, and that's what plagues are all the way through the Bible. You don't give really thanks for them, but you recognize the Lord is at work, and it's a painful work, sure, but it's really because he's bothered and he's shaking us and waking us, it's always an earthquake, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it's interesting. I mean, a lot of respond Christian responses to COVID-19 have treated it as though it's an abstract example of suffering for which Christians need to offer a theodicy. And God can sometimes, you know, work through suffering. And so I think Christians have responded to coronavirus in quite in quite an abstract philosophical way. How can a good God exist alongside a suffering world? But what you're talking about is far more active on God's part. Um, this is part of a loving God judging the world that we might seek his mercy, that we might seek a way to shelter from his anger. Um, which ironically, I I think I look to somebody like Russell Brand, um, or I look to any any number of sort of more environmentally um conscious people looking at COVID-19, and they're all saying, gosh, what is nature trying to tell us through this pandemic? And in so many ways, uh, there are a whole bunch of environmentalists who are they're not thinking about the Lord, but they're thinking in in much more biblical categories. Yeah, what is this plague trying to teach us? What are the lessons that we must learn? How must we humble ourselves in the light of this reality? Whereas I think a lot of Christians are kind of treating it like just one random example of the kind of you know suffering that's out there in the world. I think that's a mistake, don't you?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I do. And with the 2020 has brought partly, I think, the catalyst for the a lot of the political and social ferment of the year is the COVID thing. People being locked down and interacting, and it's created and this sense of um the world's broken, and the people are sort of the the the plague because of the the uh the shaking and breaking of things and the the the changing of our perspectives. It's like you're saying categories. A lot of people in the world are asking big category questions. What sort of governments have we got? What kind of a world is this? What sort of a society do we want? What's life all about? And yet I'm having these conversations sometimes, as you say, with sometimes some of the Christian commentators, and it's far too small. The conversations are too small and just like ordinary, like and and and and that point about you know, the good God, what's it? Good uh good God is all powerful and he is a messed up world. And I'm like, yeah, maybe he's messing the world up because in that equation, the possibility that the world needs to be messed up, needs to be shaken up. That's that's the thing that comes into that with that biblical perspective. And and I do think there are people in the world who are getting that idea, seeing that whoa, what kind of a world is this? And what's and like you say, the environmental questions, the world's trying to tell us something, yeah. But the living god is, and this sense of a little plague that's warning, it's the immunization idea. The immunization is you get a small dose of something in order to avoid the full-blown killer thing. In a way, the Lord's saying, listen, there is a really big plague coming, a really big rough, a really big storm. And I'm gonna I'm I'm gonna give you, maybe he thinks I'm gonna give you as small a dose as will do in order to make it so you don't face this really big one that's coming. That's what he's doing.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's the most merciful plague you can think of, really. I mean, I remember reading a tweet last week or the week before, and somebody said, um, think about it, one in a thousand Britons have died of COVID in 2020. And I was like, wow, that's a lot. And then and then I thought, because I I I know the statistic for the mortality you know rates of the whole population, and I thought, oh, actually, and one in a hundred Britons have died. And one in one of us will die, you know. And it's it's just interesting that that this sort of the Lord has taken a tithe of um of our ordinary mortality in 2020 and and put it on the news and put it in the headlines. Yeah, and it's the most merciful kind of plague in that you know, the average age of death of someone with COVID is basically the life expectancy of a Brit. Yeah, it's that it's the most merciful wake-up call God could possibly make. It's a it's a wake-up call that you know mercifully doesn't really affect our children, and you know how how much more um terrifying would COVID be if uh children were equally susceptible. But you just think if we don't wake up to this, what will the what will the Lord have to do?
SPEAKER_00Do you know, Glenn, that is you've expressed it beautifully because that is just the way I've having these conversations, particularly with some Christians who are saying things like, this COVID is hard, it's not a big deal. We shouldn't even be bothering with masks, we shouldn't be bothering with sanitizers, you know. Got me mask, got me sanitized, don't bother with that stuff. It's not the mortality rate's so tiny, who cares? You know, let's just carry on absolutely as normal and do it. And I'm sort of saying, Oh my goodness, you're like this, you're kind of coming to it as if to say the best thing we could say to people is let's ignore this thing that the Lord's doing, let's let's act as if it isn't happening, won't that be great? And I'm like, I cannot see an upside to that. I cannot see an upside to that. I can see an upside to that if I'm a um not a Christian, because I might think, well, you know, I don't care. I want my life just to be absolutely undisturbed and carry on as normal. Yeah. But from a Christian point of view, why would we play down this thing? It's an amazing like you say, the Lord's carefully kind of almost used the minimum setting of a vial that he's got available to him. And they just okay, I agree. Say it's a disproportionate response from government and things, maybe, you know. I'm not so I'm like, whatever, I'm not even getting into that. But let's even let me even concede that to people and say, yeah, okay, so it's a disproportionate the whole the whole of the economy shouldn't have been shut down. We maybe shouldn't need a okay, whatever. But because of that, it's had an effect, the shaking and waking of this little vial comparatively to the other ones we know he's got available. Let's make the most of this instead of trying to minimize it or pretend it isn't real or pretend it's all a hoax. From a Christian point of view, I cannot see the value of that. It's much better to say, look, something's happening here. The Lord is doing something, he's giving a judgment, a discipline, a waking up, an opportunity. I don't want to minimize that, I don't want to maximize it either. I don't want to say, no, that's it, it's the end of the world. Let's pull down the governments, let's do no, no, no, I'm not gonna forget all that as well. That's another rubbish message. I've got a good message, yeah. Saying here's this waking and shaking. It's little in comparison to the big one that's coming. All things that can be shaken will be shaken because the desire of all nations is coming. Let us get our attention fixed on him. Then we need fear no bad news because we know everything's safe, everything's good. Whether we live or die, it doesn't matter. We cannot really die as long as we trust in Jesus.
SPEAKER_01I've gone on a bit of a journey with this. So I you know, I I think early on when the lockdown happened, I think I was um listening to all sorts of YouTube videos, and then YouTube will send you the same kinds of things. And so you end up falling down these holes. And you know, I was listening to all sorts of people saying um, we are getting this all out of proportion, and we are looking Governments to solve problems that governments cannot solve. And with one pair of biblical spectacles on, I think, yeah, no, that's true. I think the fact that we are blaming governments for things that governments like have no sovereignty over only goes to show what idols our governmental leaders really are. And so I started to think, okay, the gov the government is taking far too large a role in these sorts of things. And um and panic is driving things. But then the more that I listened to those very same videos, the more that people were getting far, you know, even more panicked about crashing the economy and the depression that's going to sweep over the world in response to this. And I just thought to myself, well, okay, maybe they're not fearing um you know one thing, but they're buying into fear, you know, on the other hand as well. Yeah. And it it just seems like everyone's running around fearing different aspects, you know, yeah, because you could be you could be far too afraid of coronavirus. Yeah. You could be far too afraid of coronavirus. And we've definitely seen that. Yeah. But you could also be far too afraid of governmental overreach and the crashed economy as well.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_01And I guess what you're saying is we need to fear the Lord.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, fear the Lord, because in a way, my personality, I easily get caught in conspiracy theories as a human flesh-wise. I'm an idiot for things like that. I kind of love it, the idea that there's, oh, have you seen what's really going on? In actual fact, the news is this. I kind of love that stuff. And I can like those rabbit holes. I've been down them left, the left ones on the left, ones on the right. I get into them. I kind of fascinated by them, but I have to stop myself because I'm like, no, whoa, whoa, whoa, hang on, hang on. This is all if I'm not really careful, what I'm doing is I'm burying down into agendas and messages and gospels that are not this one, that are not this one. And if I say to people, listen, like the thing you've got to know is now what do I say next? The thing you've got to know is the Lord Jesus Christ is the eternal Son of the Father, and He loves us so much, He became one of us, and He gave up everything He got because He loves us and wants to rescue us, and He died for us, and He rose again and He went to the highest heaven, and He's gonna come back to fix everything that's gone wrong. But if instead of the thing you've got to know is this is what the government's really up to, or this is the really thing that's going on with COVID, and it's actually this and it's actually that and it's actually oh, and also I've actually got this little thing about Jesus. Let me just say, I've got a little thing here. Do you want to take this away with you? But don't forget what I said, and go to that link, and I'm gonna send you some more links, and then and then David Ike's got some really interesting stuff exposing what's really going on.
SPEAKER_01I don't agree with everything he says, but isn't it?
SPEAKER_00That's right. I don't agree with everything, but but and then suddenly it's like no no no no no. You see, this and now I'm out. Um and like I'm exactly like you. I kind of think when people because I sometimes I think is the government really up to something sinister, yeah. Maybe, maybe. Is there really kind of things going on with the World Health Organization and there's viruses? Yeah, maybe, yeah, maybe, maybe is the vaccine this, is it totally safe? Dunno, maybe, but I and all those things, it's not that I'm I it's not that no, I think everything's absolutely got no basis. Now, maybe there is a basis to these things, but it compared to this thing, compared to Christ and his church and his kingdom, all these kingdoms, all these empires are passing away. His kingdom is everlasting, and they I'm not saved by my ability to see through what's really going on, either really going on with the virus, and it's more dangerous than we do, or the vaccines are more dangerous, or this, you know, or that, or you know, or I can see whether it's got the government. I'm not saved by that. That's agnosticism. I'm not saved by a knowledge of what's really going on. I'm saved because I just go look, I don't know, the world's a messy, confused place. I don't understand myself, I don't understand the world, but I do get this one. And I'm betting everything I've got on Jesus because I think he does know what's going on, and I'm gonna trust him. That is what the one thing I must know. I'm not, it doesn't matter if I get everything else wrong. I the one thing I can't get wrong is this thing.
SPEAKER_01And I think that that passion um was driving a couple of Facebook posts you've made recently. Um, I'm not sure what we're gonna call this episode. I think probably a pox on all our houses might be uh what we go with, those who are listening in. You you know what we've gone with in the end. Um, but you you wrote this post uh uh a week or two back, and um and you you say this. You say you say it is no good to seek salvation in face masks and measures, but there is no salvation in being anti-vax, anti-masks and anti-measures either. Neither gospel gives us real salvation. Both are the other gospels of Galatians. Most of the anti-mask, anti-measure crowd here in London are new age or alt-right protesters with no obvious interest in the only saviour at all. The freedom that Jesus has won for us is not stolen by governments. They cannot take away the liberty we have in Jesus, even if we are forced into hazmat suits, locked in prison cells, in gulags, even in solitary confinement. Certainly not through masks, sanitizer, or ticketing Christmas carol services. What did you have in mind? Um okay, man.
SPEAKER_00When I hear it there, I'm like, wow, okay.
SPEAKER_01Uh fiery prophet of hybrid.
SPEAKER_00I know. I think it's this that um you know, ministers, it just this unbelievable amount of intra church, intra-christian uh warfare. Um, and it's all these kind of voices are saying, no matter what a minister, like so many conversations, particularly in the past two weeks, of ministers saying no matter what I do, a certain number of the Christians are gonna hate me, either because I should lock down more or should lock down less. And they're all kind of frantically thinking the thing to do is we need more sanitizers, more mass, or we shouldn't even be meeting. Why are we even meeting when there's this right? There's that, or why are we even paying any attention to this? We should just and the idea that well, okay, well, let's meet, but let's kind of okay, let's like have some face masks, let's what like do sanitizer hand and like oh no, I won't even do that. To even do that is to bow before bail. And I'm like, what are you talking about? This is just nonsense. Like, is it an inconvenience? Yeah, there's loads of government legislation that impacts the way we meet as church. We can't have 900 people in a small room because it's fire safety problems. There's things to do with safeguarding, there's things to that, there's loads of legislation that the government actually imposes on us, and we mostly don't notice it because we've got used to it. We're not used to this one where it's like saying, well, there's this kind of crisis that we're in at the moment, and there's it doesn't matter whether the panic's too much or too little, forget that. This is the government response. They're asking us to do this. Let's get on with it. It's not a massive inconvenience. We might not like it. Who does? Who does like it? But it's going on. But we can meet together, we're caught up into this kingdom with angels and archangels and all the company of heaven. If we meet physically together, we can't really sing at the moment, though advice may change in the coming months. So I it's all provisional. But but if you're at home and tuning in, bellow it out louder than you've ever done. You might have extra confidence because no one can hear you. I'm finding some of our singing even more because they've got the confidence of being at home. So, whatever is the thing, I'm saying these are little inconveniences in the big picture, in the big picture. And I'm saying that Christians all the way down through history around the world, like there were Christians in Egypt sort of 800 years ago, and they were compelled to carry full-sized crosses around with them, bound to them around their necks and all kinds of things. Um, and if they didn't do it, they're just killed. So you say, Well, they just got on with this like, okay, this is a terrible thing we're going through. I don't know how long it's gonna last. But this is what was but we're gonna carry on naming Christ, meeting as church as best as we can. And sometimes the legislation, communism, different religious systems makes it incredibly difficult and it's very costly and very hard. Or the Roman Empire, they had to get up at dawn and meet in catacombs because of government legislation. We don't have to do any of those things. It's a comparison. I think most of the Christians in persecuted conditions all over the world, if we said, Yeah, oh what, you're gonna go like that's nothing. I have to wear a mask for 20 minutes. I mean, it's actually it makes me feel really kind of it upsets me the idea that Christians are so outraged that there is any inconvenience placed on meeting as as church at all. That you think of what how many Christians around the world would love to be able to gather in any form, in any form. There are pla Christians I know in in countries where they can't meet at all, because if they did, they would be killed. And I speaking to one last year particularly, they can't meet, they have no Christians, they don't even know if there are any other Christians around, but even if they suspect so, they it's incredibly costly for them to do it. And then this Western Christians sometimes say, Oh, this is an unbelievable outrage that the government has asked me to sanitize myself or to take my temperature on the way, it's nothing, and then say, What if it lasts for two years? Yeah, what if it lasts for 10 years? Okay, whatever. Look, let's just get on with me. I can't be bothered with protesting this or you know, or anything, either protesting it or or getting enthusiastic about it. Isn't it great? We get to wear face masks and we can proclaim the love of Jesus through our face masks. I don't buy that either. That isn't a proclamation of the love of Jesus. The fact that I'm wearing a face mask of what sometimes man, people overplay that as well. That's just what all the business is doing. That's what people are doing. Proclaiming Jesus means proclaiming Jesus. Talk about him, hold him up, worship him, live his radical revolution. Really? We can't just say, Oh, well, it's enough to just wear a mask. That tells people that how that's showing no, that's not enough either. Look, let's get our attention on the big stuff, and even if we have to say, Well, from now on, you've got to wear hazmat suits. I'm just going to an extreme. I can't imagine it. Having said that, in another week, everyone will be like, he knew, he knew we were going to, but even if that were the case, I'd be like, This is bias. But if it if it means I can still preach Christ, yeah, and we can in some way still meet as church, I'm gonna do that. And then the micro is over, you can't do that, you've got to go to the gulag. All right, then in the gulag, I'll still try and preach Christ. Yeah, wherever I am, I'm gonna just try and say there's nothing more important today, no matter what's going on politically or health or anything, there is nothing more to happy if with my latest breath I might but gasp his name, including all the aerosols that are uh released into the air. Yeah, that's right. Don't gasp his name unless you've got a mask. Mask his name.
SPEAKER_01No, no, but no, but what if people come back at you, Paul, and they say, Well, listen, I I'm all with you. Let us make Christ everything and let us not be so um discarnated that we feel we can just seamlessly move online, just download our little Jesus sermonists and carry on. And isn't that such an anemic vision of church? And to even think that there's such a thing as online church is to buy into this ridiculously discarnated idea of modern Christianity. And the more charismatic among us are jumping up and down and saying, sing to the Lord a new song, and and the more sacramental among us are saying, you know, we are to eat the bread and drink the wine. Um, and you know, we who are many are one, for we all share in the one bread. And if we cannot do that, we cannot be church. So, yes, Paul, I'm with you. Let's make Jesus absolutely central, but that therefore means we must gather, and that therefore means we must encourage one another as Christians to meet.
SPEAKER_00Yep. So no, and I could probably agree. And when in March and April, way back in March, even I remember posting saying, as soon as there was talk of lockdown, I remember posting about it back then saying the biggest issue here is actually gonna be sacramental stuff. Because if that is how we really have fellowship with Jesus in this physical stuff, we really this is gonna be a really, really big thing. I remember back there I got quite a bit of heat. People are like, what's that gotta do with anything? We can just go online, church is here, church is there, you know, and there was all that idea of where it's coming, it's nothing to do with the buildings, it's nothing to do with physical things. There was a lot of heat like that back then, and I'm like, nah, I do think this is gonna be a very big issue, the low, the losing of physical connection. So and it went, I so at the time I thought, okay, well, let's just see then. Maybe it's only going to be very brief, and this is and I'm and maybe I'm over-alarmed at the physical sacramental stuff. But I I think what I what the year has done is for lots of real Christians, their appreciation of physical church, physical fellowship, sacraments. I'm finding people who a year ago probably didn't even think about things like that or didn't realize, think about them and care about them and long for them in a way that you know no amount of theological lectures could have got them to appreciate physical church and sacraments the way this year has done for a lot of people. So for a lot of real Christians, that's what I found the impact has been. And I think that point about see, I've noticed that um there are some churches like Orthodox churches and things, and they've just found ways to carry on divine liturgy, holy communion, things like that. And higher churches have done that, and I found that interesting because this definition of essential services, and um initially it's like, oh, or supermarkets, oh, and off licenses, obviously. And I'm like, what? And then Gordon sent us in for a while, but church was like, oh no, no, no, not church. I think that has should and I'm I was always like, no, no, no, we are the only essential service, and if supermarkets can find ways to like that's why I'm saying mass sanitizer, whatever, yeah, okay, let's do those things because it I think the importance of physically meeting together for and having holy communion in however may we manage to do that is is so important, and supermarkets can find ways to come up with procedures so that people they're like, Well, you gotta go to the supermarket and get stuff because you need physical food, you need physical, yeah. All right, I'm not so sure about the off licenses, maybe. Well, I'll leave that, or whatever. If they can figure out how to do it, or restaurants, why can't we? So I'm simply saying that yeah, I actually think it's crucial that we meet for sacramental fellowship and that we find ways to do it. Other business businesses do it, church can definitely do because historically, when there were plagues, church invented a lot of these things to do with quarantines and ways of distancing and having outdoor services, and church thought about those things hundreds and hundreds of years ago and tried to do them because they were saying we were we can't really, it's okay to say for a little brief time we might say, Well, we just can't physically all meet together at once for a time, and it might go on for I don't know, weeks, months, or whatever. But as a general strategy, that's not acceptable to church because we've got to find ways to meet together. In my and and I've seen all sorts of churches around the world, some like do have streamed doing the holy communion, and then they've taken it out to all the people and left it on doorsteps, or there's all sorts of solutions. But to me, I'm like, I'm I agree with you. What uh an option is not to go, hey, church has left the building, we don't need no physical buildings, we don't need no sacraments and all that. And I'm like, whoa, that kind of Christianity has been tried, and it's a kind of heretical thing to say, well, it's not about physical things, it's concepts, it's it's ideas. It I'm like, no, no, no, no, no. See, like, this is a big deal. The God who made us as flesh became flesh, and and then John's like, we touched and handled him, yeah, yeah, and he's very excited about the getting hold of flesh stuff, and and I found that this year Christians curse see a lot of the ones I'm talking to, anyway, even those that are so uh uh protesting about things, it's partly because they yearn so much for this physical fellowship and the and the sacraments and things.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, yeah. Which which is a great impetus. Um, but I I guess you're saying um it it can it can sort of morph into stone throwing. Um so that those who are very much into gathering um start to question the the Christianity of a church leader who decides to to shield the entire congregation for the month of January.
SPEAKER_00Exactly. And that's I think that's the thing. Like I know I've uh uh most days I'm chatting with ministers and they mo and they tell me the sort of decisions they make in. Some of them have for most of the past sort of 10 months almost, have had a fairly lockdown approach. And sometimes they've got quite elderly congregations and they've said, look, let's not risk it, whatever. Some have been out that extreme, and then all gradations right through to some ministers have never stopped physically meeting, regardless of what the government said. They've had secret underground church going on. I talk to ministers all across the spectrum. All I and I'm not, I sometimes I think some of their decisions were not very wise, I have to say, some I think whatever, but I don't want to talk about that to them. I'm really wanting to say, well, look, whatever you've tried to do, what matters is what is the center of attention. Are you going on about what decisions you've made on your Facebook posts and hammering the government for this or trying to expose a conspiracy here or going mad at Christians because they've gone back to meeting when they shouldn't be? They should be uh what's it save life, stay home, protect the NHS, NHS. That's it. And literally they'll say, That's the big slogan for us. I'm like, that's never gonna be my slogan. What that's a my slogan is this one like Jesus is Lord, call on him while he is near. That's a slogan. So I'm simply saying, like, whatever I talk to with these ministers, all I'm really trying to do is I'm not gonna criticize what they've done. They've made decisions, maybe they're right, maybe they're not. It doesn't matter. The big thing that matters is are they using this time to lift up Christ and to gather people into however they're managing to get church going? Are they calling people into that and getting people's identity focused in Christ and church and looking to him and worshiping and loving him? Because if they're doing that, yeah, okay, these little they maybe get them a bit wrong, they maybe get whatever. I don't want, I'm not gonna go to war and let and on concept temp people will you just stop slinging stones at each other on this stuff, and we actually are all really struggling to know what is the best thing to do. The and the actual best thing to do is let's all kind of work together as best as we can to say, look, this is the medicine of immortality, it is Jesus, the bread of life. He can give us living water, he can give us life that can never be taken away. Let's fight I can't, I don't want to go to war with Christians on this stuff.
SPEAKER_01We are so materialistic in our thinking about this, you know, because as we've been talking together, I've been thinking, you know, um, we're not used to thinking about God being behind the plagues. We're also not used to thinking that the devil is behind our disputes. You know, you know, we we think we think of the plagues as these sort of natural eruptions of random nature that we can sidestep if we're clever enough and get the vaccine. Um whereas actually it is the judgment of a merciful God. To whom we are to submit and and and cry out to. But yeah, and also we just think it's our own wisdom that has allowed us to feel superior to our fellow Christians who are making different decisions. Not realizing that it's the devil that's behind so much of the factionalism. That's it's I mean, 2020 is just the the year of touchiness like times a million, isn't it? Just supercharged like anger.
SPEAKER_00Isn't it the sort of tribalism? Uh 2020, to me, I'll remember it really, not for the virus, but for the tribalism across in everything, in everything. And and the fact is, as you say, when we get stuck in our social media thing, we the the algorithms hone us down into bubbles, and you have to kind of actively fight out of your bubble, or else you're in an ever more refined bubble, and it makes us more tribal and ever more suspicious of those from bubbles that are a bit far and all that sort of thing. And the devil's like, brilliant. That is what I didn't think I could get anything out of this. I thought this one was gonna be a Nineveh situation, still doing the paperwork for Nineveh. That was a disaster. But this one, the devil's thinking, I don't know, this one looks pretty bad. I think they may actually be there, might be revival or something. A lot of people might start turning to Jesus, and it's the screw tape letter thing, isn't it? Where someone's like, no, no, wait, hang on. Listen, we could easily get them criticizing each other for whether they wear masks or not, or how much sanitizer, or taking temperatures, or this on and the I bet the devil thought, nah, seriously, no one will be that shit to make that the main thing, criticizing each other on what policies they implement about it, and uh, you know, the screw take would be like anonymously well think of how Jenna War is think of Jonah 4 is yes, I'm angry enough to die. It is that, isn't it? It is that, and I just sort of think, you know, yeah, it's really the way because the devil's prowling about looking for whom he can devour, and that letter one Peter, it's just about like, yeah, life's hard, there's trials of all kinds, but don't get crushed by that stuff, don't pay attention to that stuff. There is Christ, he's shown as you go through this, then there's glory to come. He's proved it, and he didn't like when all the world was against him, he's not protesting, he's not shouting down and petitioning and putting up posts, he's actually just silent and quiet, and then do you not know I've got authority? Ah, I know where real authority lies. That's Jesus' only real comment in that situation. I know where all the power comes from above, and so he's calm in this very stressful situation. And Peter's like saying, Can you be like that, guys? So that's sense when Jesus says, Look, there's going to be wars, rumors of wars, earthquakes, famines, plagues, all these sort of things going on. Don't panic, don't go. This is the end of the world. This is it, the government's taking over. This is a this is he's really saying, Listen, don't do that, just stay calm. That isn't the end. When it comes, you'll know. Every eye will see. So, what you need to do is just know what's the really big story. Yeah, that stuff is to me, that chapter, you know, the Matthew stuff. Are you looking it up in Matthew? I'm looking up Peter, but yeah, oh, the Peter bit, yeah. The Peter bit's amazing, isn't it?
SPEAKER_01The whole the whole thing, you know. I mean, live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a cover-up for evil, but living as servants of God. Honor everyone, love the brotherhood, fear God, honor the emperor.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And you know, honor the emperor, and and then he goes on to talk about Christ who also suffered, leaving you an example so that you might follow in his footsteps. Verse 22, he committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth. When he was reviled, he did not revile in return. But when he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly. Um and and so that that example of, you know, here are people living under tyrannical governmental overreach far beyond anything we could imagine. Yeah. We're told to honor the emperor and to follow in the footsteps of Christ, to entrust himself to the Father, who even through crucifixion can raise us up at the end and bring greater glory. Um that's that's a message to us, isn't it? When it comes to, okay, so we thought about one way that the devil can get a foothold, and that's in the the divisions between us. But there are some other distractions, aren't there, um, that could just throw us completely off course. And you know, you you wrote another uh Facebook post quite recently, Paul, um, uh about um various ways that we as the church can get distracted in these times from from our true calling. And uh let me let me just read a couple of a couple of um these paragraphs to you. Um this is from the the the prophet of hybrid. Um remember those parts of Paul's letters when he mobilizes the churches to protest against Nero's legislation and get out onto the streets to protest about reduced political freedoms? What about that moving part of one Peter when he reminds us how during his trial Jesus delivered that devastating political speech that took apart the totalitarian policies of Pontius Pilate and Herod? Who could forget John's concern that the unjust power of earthly governments was overthrowing the rule of the Lamb in the book of Revelation and how the authority of church rested on our political freedoms? Surely we must remember how Jesus sent out his apostles to fight against authoritarian governments in every nation. No? Neither do I.
SPEAKER_00You make it sound much better than it was.
SPEAKER_01We should get a voiceover soon. It was a time, a process. Um so, but that that is a problem, isn't it, when when we get when we get distracted by, okay, let us grant that there might be massive governmental overreaches, or or at least let us grant that the fact we're looking to our governments to sort out plagues, yeah, shows us that governments are false saviors today.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01I mean, let's grant that, right? Yeah, that's true. Yeah. What is the answer to that though?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, and and it is this kind of um challenge, it's all the way through the Bible. Because sometimes Christians say, Oh, the Bible, um, I'm not interested in politics because I'm just following Jesus. It's in fact, that's not so common these days, actually. Uh, but that used to be quite a common um uh position of Christians nowadays. Um, I think that's probably largely forgotten, but um, it used to be this idea, and I think it's like, no, the Bible is intensely political, it's it is constantly sort of dethroning um and unmasking political power. Um, like Pharaoh and things like this, and it's like saying, Hey, listen, Pharaoh, you think you rule the world, you think you're the great defender of your people, but you're not. You're not. You're actually, you could be a blessing to them in a way, you could if you serve Jesus, but you're not, and you get in the way. And all the way through the stories of like Moses or Daniel or Joseph or um, and in the New Testament, this kind of even that stuff where it's just saying this is what what are the expectations of the government? They're quite small, really, in the Bible. Like, let's let's pray for a quiet life so we can get on with church and things like that. There's things a bit like that that I'm like, whoa, that's a very small expectation, or whatever. I look, whatever is the thing. The the big thing is if we look, it's a bit like when James 120. Human anger does not achieve God's righteousness, God's righteous way. So it's an in that to me is spoken a lot because people get angry, like the society's totally unjust, or we're losing our freedoms. Those are the two big cries. On the left, it's an unjust society, on the right, we're losing our freedoms, those tend to be the slogans. Right, we've got to mobilize and get angry and protest and take back or pull down or reconstruct. But that one Peter thing is so interesting. Jesus is definitely losing his freedoms, uh, and it's totally unjust. But what he essentially does is in that situation, he trusts himself to the one who judges justly, and he doesn't really expect of these human governments true righteousness and true freedom in this bigger sense. That in this sense, I've you we have to understand that real justice, real righteousness, belongs at a much, much higher level and on a bigger picture. Like there's a day of justice coming when the creation itself will be released from its bondage to decay. You think, well, so like Anne said, I'm worried about my freedoms because I might have to wear a mask for an hour. The creation is under a bondage of decay, like a colossal level of slavery and captivity. And the creation, the cosmos, is yearning for total, this sort of categorically higher level of freedom. And I'm such a saying, yeah, there's something about us yearning for freedom. But if we expect that any government could yield that kind of freedom, it's ridiculous. It's ridiculous, they can't, and then that sense of the kind of the kind of really deep freedom of mind and heart. It's like the Nelson Mandela thing, they could lock him up, but in that sense of he's a free man in his mind and his ideas and all that kind of thing. You can lock a person up, and and then the Peter, John, John writing revelation, he's in prison, he's on an island, he's exiled, and yet, in a deep sense, he's wandering around in the heights of heaven. Man, you can't take that from him. Or the justice thing. We're saying, yeah, church, in church, we care for widows and orphans. We're over, we turn the world upside down. That's what church does. The Philemon principle that we're saying, look, society may have all kinds of different sorts of slavery, but we aren't. And we are going to treat each other differently. We might buy one another's freedom and all these things go on in church. Church is a revolutionary thing, it's far more revolutionary than the kind of trivial stuff that Marxism does, or whatever. That's not that's just so superficial. Church is a fundamental revolution, having all things in common, written and all these kinds of things. We do that, but what we're writing but we don't expect governments to do that. We can't, we can't, we we sort of some laws are better than others and all that sort of thing. But I can't look to them for the level of justice and freedom that Jesus is about and church is about. That's what that's categorically higher concepts and bigger, more fundamental.
SPEAKER_01But I mean, what would you say then to somebody who says, Well, okay, so we shouldn't have had William Wilberforce then? Because he he took the spiritual freedom that we have in the gospel and he preached it to the authorities and he brought about political change and the emancipation of the slaves, and he was a hero for that, and and others who um you know um agitated for the same change. Um, didn't they take their Christianity very seriously? And aren't you just talking about a quietistic, pietistic, you know, vision that would have never liberated the slaves?
SPEAKER_00So um uh Wilbur Force is a good example because I like him in the sense that uh he did what he did in the name of Christ, um, and he always insisted on that being what the motivation was. But I also people always one, he didn't actually emancipate slaves, he just stopped the slave trade. And the thing that people overdo what he accomplished because Wilberforce could could stop that, what he couldn't do, and what no government legislation can do is really deal with racism, and that requires transformation of hearts and minds. And so a lot of the things that even last year with the protests, and and sometimes people say, Hey, what about Wilberforce? And it's like, well, it didn't fix everything, it didn't fix anything, the and particularly in America with the legacy, and that long after Wilberforce, there was still slavery, still slavery, and then they had the civil war, and but even today in southern states of America, there are essentially black churches and white churches. That's still good, it's not as if, oh well, Wilberforce sorted all this out like 200 years ago. Nah, it's the the the the what is required to deal with some of these things, all things like government legislation can be sort of good, sort of bad, or whatever, but a really genuinely just and compassionate society that shares and that's what church is about. That's about this new hearts and new minds, a really deep transformation. So slavery, slavery was reintroduced in that sense to Europe because of the enlightenment. It was it didn't exist in Europe with with all the Christendom stuff, didn't exist. And the enlightenment had these sort of racist concepts of people and how to use people and categorize people and things. It was like an Enlightenment heresy, it was at the level of doctrine kind of thing. So my point is, yeah, Whippos is a good guy, but I also like about him that one half of his passion was that, and the other half was what he called the reformation of morals, and what he had were these like little talking point things, conversation starter things. And the idea was to start conversations to lead people to become Christians because he knew to really reform what he called morals, but he meant character, hearts and minds. The legislation can't do that. That comes about three really through evangelism, and so we're heart. That's what's good about he didn't have he himself didn't have unrealistic expectations of what the statute book can do. Now I'm saying, yeah, is it good to have better laws? Yeah, of course, of course, and there are laws that do lots of good in that sense and and prevent evil, but what they can't bring about is true transformation of hearts and minds. They can't bring about love. They can take money from rich people and give it to poor people, but they can't make rich people love poor people, or poor people love they can make politic politics can make rich people ignore or despise or look down on poor people, it can stir up poor people to be to hate the rich. That's what Marxism does. It and all these things, or and all these different kinds of politics, they can do that, or they can take money, give it to this, or they can whatever, make businesses flourish, whatever. But they can't make people love one another. They can't make they can't give forgiveness, they can't cleanse away guilt, they can't take away our shame, they don't know how to bind people together of every kind of background and social status and education into one body that loves one another sincerely from the heart and shares the joys and sorrows. It actually takes the living God everything he has got to form such families. It says that it all the almighty power of God that he exerted in the resurrection is at work to bring about these things. It's everything you know. God is stretched to his limits to make church families that have justice and compassion and love and unity and truth. Governments forget it, they can do some things, but they can't do that.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah. So that the real political action is church. The great polis is the city of God that Christ is building by his spirit. And uh, and let's keep doing that. Paul Blackham, you've given so much of your time. I'm so grateful. We'll have to do this again soon. No, thanks, Gladys. It's always good. You always stretch me. So if people want to um catch up with you, Paul, online, what's the best place they can go?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, well, there's St. Crispin's Church in London. We have our website, and on Facebook, there's me, Paul Blackham, or St. Crispin's Church. They're good. And then there's always the book by book stuff, Biblical Frameworks uh website, and there's uh we've just got these book by books. There's a new format of it that's like a bit bigger. People might be interested in that for making notes and things like that. But uh, that'd be great, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Book by book is brilliant. It is Matthew Henry for the 21st century, and uh people should go out, uh, run, do not walk, and get yourself a copy of uh all of the book by books uh with Paul Blackham. But Paul, thanks so much for joining us on the live cast. Hey, thank you. Well, we hope you enjoyed that episode. Any questions, comments, or feedback, please email us at infospeaklife.org.uk. We'd love to interact with you. And you can join the lively conversation on Facebook by going to Facebook.com slash speaklifeuk. Our page is called Speak Life UK on Facebook. We really hope that you've been helped by our ministry. All that we do is supported by the generosity of listeners like you. So if you have been blessed by us at Speak Life and feel you could support us financially, we would be thrilled. There are ways of doing that, either as a one-off or on a monthly basis, just by heading over to speaklife.org.uk slash give. We are so grateful to those who have already given to our ministry and to those who pray for us. You can find out our prayer needs by signing up to our emails at speaklife.org.uk slash sign up. But as I say, if you're able to partner with us financially at whatever level, we would be so grateful. You can head over now to speaklife.org.uk slash give. Well, that'll do us for this episode. We'll see you next time on the Speak Life Podcast.