Prayer and Prophecy

The Essential Kenneth Leech

Kenneth Leech, David Bunch, Angus Ritchie

• Publisher: Seabury Books
• Year: 2009
• Print ISBN: 9781596271159
• eBook ISBN: 9781596272170
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Theology

A pioneer in his radical approach to politics and prayer, internationally known theologian and activist Kenneth Leech has for half a century influenced religious leaders on both sides of the Atlantic. This essential reference text brings together his writings on prayer, contextual theology, and social justice in one wide-ranging volume.

This selection of writings illustrates how theology can inform prayer and action in a local context, plus highlights wider themes such as globalization and inter-faith collaboration. Secondary goals were to present materials from both British and North American perspectives. The key criteria in selecting material were continuing relevance, popular appeal, and readability.

The book is organized by theme, including:

FIRST PRINCIPLES — illustrating how his revolutionary political convictions arose from Trinitarian orthodoxy.

THE VISIBLE CHURCH — focusing on the Anglican denomination, and on reaction and renewal of the Catholic tradition.

MINISTRY ON THE MARGINS — highlighting Leech's work in various aspects of ministry, especially with respect to anti-racism, drugs, homelessness, and young people.

SPIRITUAL THEOLOGY — containing his reflections about prayer and worship, noting particularly the indivisibility of spirituality and social justice.

PILGRIM JOURNEY — including people and places that have influenced Leech and personal reflections about discipleship and ministry.

Part One

First Principles

1
The Trinity

That is the meaning of the symbol of the Trinity: that in God there is social life, community, sharing. To share in God is to share in that life.¹

The Name of God²

The holiness and justice of God, his unique relationship with Israel and his exclusive demand for allegiance, receive their most powerful symbolic expression in the name of God: Yahweh, the great I Am. In Hebrew thought, power resides in the name. To give a name is to possess power over the named one. To know a name is to enter into the mystery of the person’s being. The greatest significance therefore must be attached to the name of God as revealed, first, to Moses. The name is a mark of identity to such an extent that to be without a name is virtually to be without existence. Names were essential to the being of gods as well as humans. Thus the Babylonian creation epic began:

When on high the heaven had not been named,

Firm ground below had not been called by name …

When no gods whatever had been brought into being,

Uncalled by name, their destinies undetermined –

Then it was the gods were formed within them [i.e. the primeval waters]

Lahmu and Lahuma were brought forth, by name they were called.

Genesis too associates creation with naming (1:5, 8, 10; 2:19). To know someone’s name is to have power over them, and so to withhold ones name is to prevent the acquiring of such power. However, nowhere does the Old Testament give the name of Abraham’s God. He himself did not know it, nor did Jacob discover it (Gen. 32:39). He is therefore identified simply as ‘the God of Abraham’, for a relationship with a nameless God raised problems. (On one occasion, Abraham’s God speaks of himself as ‘the God of Bethel’ [Gen. 31:13], but this was to connect himself with an earlier revelation. Bethel never became a permanent seat.) The possession of a name was thus of great importance, and when Moses was to return to Egypt he knew that the first question he would be asked about his encounter with God was ‘What is his name?’ (Exod. 3:13). In fact, the question ‘What is his name?’ became a form of denial of existence (cf. Prov. 30:4).

In the Book of Exodus we are told that it was only in the time of Moses that God revealed himself by the name Yahweh. The Lord who appeared to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as God Almighty had not been known in those days by his name Yahweh (Exod. 6:2). There are several passages in Genesis where the name Yahweh is used, and one tradition assumes that its use goes back to the beginning of history. Thus, in relation to the time of Adam, we are told that it was then that people began to invoke Yahweh by name (Gen. 4:26). But in other passages the name is avoided in the pre-Mosaic period. In its place we find the name El, the name of one of the two principal deities of Canaan.

Originally El designated any god, but it also occurs as a proper name for specific deities. Some hold the view that El was a high god who was worshipped all over the West Semitic world under a variety of names. In the Old Testament, El occurs some 217 times, usually in conjunction with another name. Thus Abraham worships El Elyon (God Most High) at Salem (Gen. 14:17–21), El Shaddai (God Almighty) at Hebron (17:1) and El Olam (God Everlasting) at Beersheba (21:33). Isaac worships El Roi (God of Seeing) at Beer-lahai-roi (16:14; 24:62). Jacob worships El Bethel (God of Bethel; 35:6–7) and erects an altar to El at Shechem (33:20). It seems that El was a common name for the senior deity of the Canaanite divine hierarchy. In the patriarchal period there is a merging of the worship of ancestral gods with the worship of the Canaanite god El. The Ras Shamra texts show a society of gods with no clear antecedent for the later monotheistic world-view of Yahwism.

However, while the Elohim (plural of El) were absorbed into the faith of Yahweh, the same was not true of the Baal cult, an equally important part of Canaanite religion. There is some slight evidence of attempts to identify Yahweh with Baal (2 Sam. 5:20; 2:10; 9:6), In the early days of the monarchy, Yahweh may have been addressed as Baal; but its association with the Canaanite cults led to the banning of the name. So Hosea insists that God will no longer be referred to as ‘my Baal’ and the very names of the Baalim will be wiped out (2:16).

Yahweh is the name under which Israel’s God is to be known. The name of Yahweh occurs over 6,000 times in the Old Testament. According to Exodus 3—4, it was to Moses that God revealed himself first under this name. But this God was not a different God from the God of the patriarchs. Yahweh is the God of all the earth (Isa. 54—55). While the name was unknown to the patriarchs (Exod. 3:13f; 6:2) it would seem that various earlier gods were merged into Yahwism. Abraham is said to have instructed his descendants to observe the way of Yahweh (Gen. 18:19), but the revelation at Sinai initiated a new era in the history of Israel. So Yahweh became Israel’s banner (Exod. 17:15) and individuals were called by names based on Yahweh (1 Kings 11:29; 14:1). The name was to be revered and not blasphemed, hence the prohibition of its use in curses and in magic.

The use of the plural form Elohim as a name for God was common in Israel, but it had the disadvantage that it was also applied to the false gods of Canaan. Thus ‘Thou shalt have no other elohim but me’ (Exod. 20:3). So, from the time of Amos and Hosea, the alternative usage of Yahweh Tsebaoth (Lord of Hosts) enters the vocabulary, and is adopted by Jeremiah and the post-exilic prophets. Yahweh and Elohim were not mutually exclusive. Yahweh Tsebaoth was the Elohim of the armies of Israel (1 Sam. 17:45). The ‘hosts’ were not only Israel’s armies, for Yahweh was Lord of the stars and of the angels. So the visitor who met Joshua at Gilgal announced himself as captain of the hosts of Yahweh (Josh. 5:14). In Isaiah 6 the hosts appear, distinct from Yahweh, yet giving glory to him, and praise is seen as their central role (Ps. 148:2).

What then is the meaning of the revelation to Moses of the name of Yahweh? The name is usually rendered into English as ‘I am that I am’, though the Revised Standard Version margin reads ‘I will be what I will be’. To say simply that Yahweh means the self-existent nature of God, being itself, is to reduce Jewish theology to static notions of essence. Yahweh is not the god of the philosophers. The Hebrew denotes not so much a static idea (being) as a dynamic process (becoming). ‘I become what I become’, or ‘I will be what I will be’, are closer to the underlying sense of the moving, living God. Yahweh is revealed as the God who will bring Israel out of Egypt, and who will be with Moses (Exod. 3:7–10): he is the God of the future, the God of creative history.

The revelation of the name of God is a kind of self-emptying, an act by which Yahweh surrenders himself. The true name of Pharaoh was kept secret, yet Yahweh, the God of all the earth, reveals his identity to Moses. Before Moses the goodness of God passes, and in his hearing the name of Yahweh is pronounced (Exod. 33:19). At the same time, the inner essence of Yahweh remains unknowable, for he is a God who hides himself (Isa. 45:15; Job 11:7; Ps. 97:2; Exod. 33:10). God cannot be described directly, but only in his relationships and in action. The recognition of this fact, that God cannot be portrayed or directly seen, is a fundamental principle of Yahwism, and of the Christian mystical tradition which grew from its roots. Jewish theology came to be wary even of uttering the name of Yahweh, and substituted Adonai, the Lord, in public use of the divine name. In Greek versions of the Old Testament, kurios translates both Adonai and Yahweh. In the period of the second Temple, the name Yahweh was pronounced once a year, by the High Priest on the Day of Atonement; but after the destruction of the Temple in AD 70, the priests forgot the form of the name, and it ceased to be used.

Yahweh is God of nature and of the historical processes, and yet is superior to them and beyond them. Unlike the pagan deities, Yahweh is not identified with the forces of nature, but is in control of them. Thus earthquakes and volcanoes are the fingers of Yahweh, he appears in clouds and stars, and he speaks through the thunder. The wind is his breath. But these natural phenomena are all his creatures, essentially distinct from him. Yahweh is no storm god or volcanic deity, nor does he have his permanent home within the mountain. He descends upon it, but speaks from heaven. He is distinct too from the gods, for there are many elohim, but Yahweh is one. There can be no rival. Thus to sacrifice to the elohim is a capital offence (Exod. 22:2.0).

So in the Old Testament the name of Yahweh is the expression of his character, his holiness, his power and majesty. Holy and terrible is his name (Ps. 111:9). Yet this name, the revelation of transcendence, dwells upon the earth, in a specific place (Deut. 12:5, etc.), in Jerusalem (1 Kings 8:27–9), and among his people who are called by his name.

Salvation in Christ³

That God has destined men and women for salvation is assumed in the New Testament (1 Thess. 5:9). He wills all people to be saved, and to come to knowledge of the truth (1 Tim. 2:4). And this salvation is the work of divine grace (Titus 2:11), it is ‘the gospel of God’ (Rom. 1:1), the power of God for salvation in which ‘the righteousness of God’ is revealed (Rom. 1:16–17; 3:21–5). And this righteousness, like salvation itself, is not primarily a personal but a social reality. The Pauline letters are saturated with the language of social salvation. It is important to stress this social understanding of salvation, for it has been eroded by centuries of western individualism which has reduced the common salvation to a purely personal experience.

The letters speak of God’s salvation as a past event: he saved us (2 Tim. 1:9; Titus 3:5; etc.) ‘The death he died he died to sin, once for all …’ (Rom. 6:10). Yet it is also seen as present and continuing: we are ‘being saved’ (1 Cor. 1:18). And there is a future aspect: ‘we shall be saved’ (Rom. 5:9; cf. 13:11; 1 Thess. 5:9). In the history of salvation, the death of Christ is of central significance. The events of his passion and death dominate the Gospels – one third of Marks account is devoted to the final week of the life of Jesus – while Paul shows little interest in Jesus’ earthly life, but only in his death, resurrection, and presence in the Church.

Salvation according to the Pauline letters comes through Christ. He came into the world to save sinners (1 Tim. 1:15). He is the one mediator between God and men (2:5). He was put to death for our transgressions and raised for our justification (Rom. 4:25). We have been justified by his blood (5:9). It is in the writings of Paul that the saving work of God in Christ is described and explained most clearly, and therefore these writings are of central importance for understanding the Christian teaching about salvation. In the letters, the work of Christ is described by a variety of terms. It is justification: we are justified by the faith of Christ (Gal. 2:16; Rom. 3:26–8; 4:25; 5:18). It is salvation (2 Cor. 7:10; Rom. 1:16; 10:10; 13:11). It is expiation by the blood of Christ (Rom. 3:25). It is redemption: in Christ we have been ransomed, bought back (1 Cor. 1:30; Rom. 3:24; 8:32). It is sanctification, & word closely associated with redemption, cleansing, and justification (1 Cor. 1:2, 30; 6:11). It is freedom: in Christ we have been set free from bondage (Gal. 5:1, 13; Rom, 8:1–2, 21; 2 Cor. 3:17). It is transformation: we are being changed from glory to glory, being renewed in our whole beings (2 Cor. 3:18; Rom. 12:2). It is new creation (Gal. 6:15; 2 Cor. 5:17; Rom. 6:4; 1 Cor. 15:45). And it is reconciliation (2 Cor. 5:18–20; Rom. 5:10–11; 11:15).

Paul sees the relationship of human beings to God as having been radically changed by the work of Christ. Having been previously enemies, we have now been reconciled to God by the death of Christ, and we will be saved by the life of Christ (Rom. 5:10–11). Through the cross, peace has come to the disordered world (Col. 1:19–22), and those who were afar off have been brought near to God (Eph. 2:13). The fundamental idea in Paul’s understanding of Christ’s saving work is that of participation. Through Christ’s dying and raising, a new system of relationships has been brought about. We have been changed as a result of what has happened to Christ. Christ is the first-fruits, the foretaste of the harvest of the dead (1 Cor. 15:20–23). Paul explains: ‘If the dough offered as first fruits is holy, so is the whole lump; and if the root is holy, so are the branches’ (Rom. 11:16). Thus the purpose of Christ’s death was to bring about life in us (1 Thess. 5:10).

In describing the saving work of Christ, Paul draws on the sacrificial language of Israel. In 1 Corinthians 10, the Exodus drama is recounted. But, says Paul, these events were described for the Christian era: ‘Now these things happened to them as a warning, but they were written down for our instruction, upon whom the end of the ages has come’ (1 Cor. 10:11). Christians are living in ‘end-time’, in the time of fulfilment of the ancient hopes of Israel, the fulfilment of the sacrificial symbols of the past, the time of the new Passover.

For Christ, our paschal lamb, has been sacrificed. Let us therefore celebrate the festival, not with the old leaven, the leaven of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.

1 CORINTHIANS 5:7–8

Christ is the pascha, the new Passover Lamb, the ‘lamb without blemish or spot’ (1 Pet. 1:19). Elsewhere, other sacrificial terms are used of Christ. He is described as a sin offering, who ‘has appeared once and for all at the end of the age to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself (Heb. 9:26). He is compared to the scapegoat of Leviticus who bears the iniquities of the people (Lev. 16:22). So Peter writes of Christ: ‘He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed’ (1 Pet. 2:24; cf. Isa. 53:5). Similarly, Paul says that God ‘made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God’ (2 Cor. 5:21).

In Paul’s theology, salvation and righteousness are inseparable. Salvation is the work of the righteous God. Through his saving acts we are delivered from slavery (Rom. 6:20; 8:15, 21), from unrighteousness (6:13), from condemnation (5:18; 8:1) and from hostility (Eph. 2:15). We are restored to freedom (Rom. 6:7; 8:21; Gal. 5:1), and reconciled to God (Rom. 5:10; 2 Cor. 5:18–19). God’s righteousness is manifested (Rom. 1:17; 3:26), and Paul even asserts that we become the righteousness of God (2 Cor. 5:21). And this salvation is a social and cosmic event: it is the world, the kosmos, which is reconciled to God in Christ (2 Cor. 5:19).

A key idea in the Christian doctrine of salvation is that of reconciliation. Through Christ, Paul says, we have received reconciliation (Rom. 5:11). The group of reconciliation words have as their basic meaning the changing of a relationship. To reconcile is to make otherwise, to alter a state of affairs. In secular language, the words were used of social and political change. Reconciliation is similar in meaning to the English word ‘atonement’, a word with no equivalent in other modern European languages. There is, however, no connection with the themes of expiation or propitiation.

It has been suggested that the theme of reconciliation is a minor one in the New Testament. But this view can hardly be sustained, It is true that the actual words ‘reconcile’ and ‘reconciliation do not occur frequently in the New Testament as a whole. Apart from Matthew 5:24, most of the references are in Paul (see Rom. 3:24–6; 2 Cor. 5:18–21; Col. 1:15–20; Eph. 2:21–7). But the idea is a much wider one and pervades a good deal of New Testament teaching. In Paul, it is always God who reconciles and human beings who are reconciled. The good news of the reconciliation which has been accomplished in Christ, and the ‘ministry of reconciliation (2 Cor. 5:18) which is a continuing work, are central to the work of the Church. On one level, the work of reconciliation has been done: God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself. And yet, ‘there can never be an end absolutely to this reconciliation, for it is the living God at work, and it is part and parcel of the fellowship which issues from his work and in which it is perpetuated’.

Much Christian preaching, however, has emphasised only the finished work of Christ, and has done so in a ‘substitutionary’ way. Christ took my place, he died instead of me. It would be wrong to claim that there was no basis for substitutionary ideas of atonement in the New Testament, but the support is very slight. In Paul, the stress is rather on the restoration of relationship: because we are justified by the blood of Christ, we will be saved from the wrath of God. For in Christ we are reconciled (Rom. 5:9–10). There are in fact only three passages in Paul which can be cited in support of a substitutionary view. First, in Romans 8, Paul writes that God sent his Son ‘in the likeness of sinful flesh’ (8:3) to fulfil the just requirement of the law. Christ was sent, moreover, ‘for sin’. This usage ‘for sin’ indicates purpose (cf. Lev. 4:3). Christ comes to deal with sin.

There is a second passage in 2 Corinthians 5:21 in which Christ is said to have been made to ‘be sin for us. The point which is being made is that Christ became fully human: he who knew no sin shared in human nature, became human.

Thirdly, Christ is said to have become ‘a curse for us’ (Gal. 3:13). But the context makes it clear that the reference is to the legal curse upon a hanged man (Deut. 21:23). There is no real support in any of these passages for the doctrine of substitutionary atonement.

At the centre of the discussion of the nature of Christ’s work is the theme of redemption. Originally the word lutron meant the price paid for one’s freedom. But the verb lutrousthai came to be used, with God as its subject, to mean the securing of release by the power of God. Often in the New Testament the language of redemption is used without any reference to price. Thus God has redeemed his people (Luke 1:68). Anna spoke to those who awaited the redemption of Jerusalem (2:38). Christ secured an eternal redemption (Heb. 9:12). Christians have been redeemed by the precious blood of Christ (1 Pet. 1:18). In all these cases the words used are redemption (lutrosis) or the verb, to redeem (lutrousthai). The word lutron, which originally conveyed the notion of price, occurs only once in the New Testament, in Mark 10:45 and its parallel verse Matthew 20:38. (A similar word antilutron occurs in 1 Timothy 2:6.) It is no...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• Preface
• Foreword
• Introduction – from London
• Introduction – from New York
• Part One: First Principles
• Part Two: The Visible Church
• Part Three: Ministry on the Margins
• Part Four: Spiritual Theology
• Part Five: The Pilgrim Journey
• Further Reading
• Notes
• Index