It is important that we understand two things about God's wrath: First, it's true character and purpose is solely to recover a path for his love. Secondly, God needs to do nothing but withdraw his Holy Spirit from us, and leave us to our own spirits, for us to be living in hell. Even J. P. Sartre in No Exit knew that without God "hell is other people."

It is as if God is saying, "You want universities without me? Help yourself." The universities, birthed from the womb of the church, are now fast replacing truth with power, as well described by George Marsden, Alasdair MacIntyre, Hunter Baker, John Summerville. The depressing disclosure of moral and academic bankruptcy is clearly shown in the novel, I Am Charlotte Simmons by Tom Wolfe. The latter is recommended for its diagnosis by Mary Ann Glendon, that rare phenomenon, a Christian scholar at Harvard, the Vatican of secularism. Students are turning campuses into concerns for diversity whose specious unity is asserted by freedom denying politically correct hysteria.

God is saying, "You want democracy without me? Help yourself!" We have helped ourselves by being given a choice for President of the United States of America between two of the most distrusted candidates in the history of our country.

God is saying, "You want sex without my guidance? Help yourself!" We are helping ourselves with soul destroying pornography, a lonely and confusing hook-up culture, a growing culture of abuse, rape, pederasty, and in the words of William Butler Yeats, "everywhere the ceremony of innocence is drowned."

God is saying, "You want gender identification without me? Help Yourself!" We are helping ourselves with drugs and surgical mutilation rather than therapy for gender confusion and are in frantic controversies over bathroom insanities.

God is saying, "You want politics without me? Help yourself!" We are helping ourselves by electing representatives whom we do not trust and who express themselves in legislative stagnation.

"You want an economy without me? Help yourself!" We are helping ourselves with a $19 trillion debt and no prospect of paying it off, a policy that discourages savings as well as producing looming bankruptcies for municipalities, territories and cities.

"You want marriage and families without me? Help yourself!" We are helping ourselves with no fault divorce, serial polygamy, single parent families, government programs that disadvantages marriage, and defines marriage in ways that suit us. And what suits us is the decline of marriage itself. All this in spite of the widely acknowledged fact that civilization itself depends on the institution of marriage and family. Montesquieu long ago warned us: "More states have perished by violation of moral customs than by violation of their laws."

"You "Want science without me? Help yourself." We now are in a condition that was described by the non-Christian scientist Bertrand Russell: "As soon as the failure of science considered as metaphysics is realized the power conferred by science as a technique is only obtainable by something analogous to the worship of Satan, that is to say, by the renunciation of Satan, that is to say, by the renunciation of love. (Russell, The Scientific Outlook, New York: W.W. Norton, 1931, pp 262-3).

Is God not saying "You want life not on my terms but on your own terms? Help yourself!" Our sad terms are diapers to diapers, dust to dust, ashes to ashes. When the Sadducees, who denied the Resurrection, rule the culture's hearts, when finally there is no justice, when ultimately nothing is fair, when goodness to which our aims strive is never to be reaches, when sin, selfishness, tears, loneliness, cruelty and death are at the last unaccountable, unresolved, unhealed, and unredeemed, it is indeed truly depressing. No Zoloft or Prozac can cure this malignancy. The Sadducean denial of the Resurrection thus leads reluctantly to the pun: "Sad you see." But it is more important that our sadness be more important than our anger as we look at this strange world.

Surely this is a land where we are to sing the Lord's Song: "God so loved [this] world that he gave his only Son, that whosoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life." This is a land not to be despised but to be loved.

Let us look at the text which illustrates this difficulty yet, at the same time, points to a solution, John 14:6 "No one comes to the Father except through me." If we lose this truth we lose the Christian faith. But we much announce it as Gospel not as exclusion. The problem is that the culture's hope of being acceptable to God reduces God's righteousness and elevates human goodness so that they might come together on a much lower level.

Christianity's God, unlike any other god, is such a flame of love that all that is not love is consumed in his presence. We are not sinners because we sin. We sin because we are sinners. Therefore, salvation by humans is impossible. Only God himself, acting in his only Son, makes it possible for us sinners to be unscathed in his presence. Only in Christ can sinners come to God. It is not an exclusionary text but an inclusive text. All are invited to be in Christ and, thus, all are welcome to come to God.

People who resent this text need to hear the Lord's Song about the absolute goodness of God's love and the absolute unworthiness of humans. This human impossibility of atonement and reconciliation is tranformed by the divine human Christ by whom we now have access to God.

One of the verses in our song must be the "good news of original sin" (Reinhold Niebuhr's phrase). To a culture complaining about selfish children, inadequate parents, crooked politicians, riotous teenagers, scholars relinquishing any concern for truth, and inconceivable atrocities, it can be said, "What did you expect?" A world, that relegates sin to matters of sex and diet, while ignoring matters of pride, arrogance, corruption, selfishness, and greed, is in desperate need of hearing the Lord's Song.

But our song must acknowledge sin's presence in all of us and in all aspects of life. T.S. Eliot tells us, "To do away with the sense of sin is to do away with civilization." No one has made the recognition of sin so simple, so clear and so irrefutable as Archbishop William Temple: "When we open our eyes as babies we see the world stretching out around us; we are in the middle of it ... I am the center of the world I see; where the horizon is depends on where I stand. If I move the whole horizon moves. Some things hurt us; we hope they will not happen again; we call them bad. Some things please us; we hope they will happen again; we call them good. Our standard of value is the way the things affect ourselves. So each of us takes his place in the center of his own world. But I am not the center of the world, or the standard of reference as between good and bad; I am not, and God is."

Part of our song must be that sin is ubiquitous and humanly incurable. Even those in a state of grace are yet missing the mark (harmatia - sin, in spite of the Council of Trent). We sing the Lord's Song not as Pharisees, trusting in our own orthodoxy but as the Lord's forgiven, miserable but repentant sinners.

Repent! The beginning of our song in this strange land must be repentance starting with ourselves. Repentance is a crucial tune in the Lord's Song. The Incarnation of our Lord is only accessible to us through repentance and its true meaning must be recovered. We have been seriously misled by the translation of the Greek word for repentance - metanoia as change of mind. Kittel's Wordbook of the Bible shows us that in virtually every occurrence of repentance in scripture, It is not minds but hearts that are in need of change. There are nine columns in my concordance on heart and only one on mind.

"The heart is deceitful above all things" (Jer. 17:9) "I will give them a heart to know me . and get yourselves a new heart and a new spirit" (Ezek. 18:31); "I will give them a heart to know that I am the Lord . . ." (Jer. 24:7) ". . . with the heart man believeth" (Rom. 10:10) And Jesus' wisdom is clear: "But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart and defiles a man. For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murders, adultery, fornication, theft, false witness, slander." (Matt. 15:18,19) but "... if you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved." (Rom. 10:9)

There is nothing in Greek literature like scripture's emphasis on the heart. Greek teaching, that knowledge equals virtue, naturally assumed the mind to be central. Devoid of the revelation given to Israel, the Greek language has no proper Greek word for the Judeo-Christian experience of repentance. In the fifth century an attempt by St. Jerome to translate "repent" as "do penance" led to the inference that sinners must do works to gain forgiveness. Although corrected at the Reformation, we were still using the inadequate Greek word, metanoien, change of mind. This led to dictionary definitions of repentance, such as "to feel self-reproach," "to feel sorry," "regret," "remorse," "to change one's mind." Haven't we all experienced the change of our minds that did not lead to change of behaviour? Mark Twain observed how easy it was for him to give up smoking. He said, ''I've done it a thousand times." But a change of heart does produce a changed person.

Ashley Null has shown us Cranmer's wisdom in the Prayer Book concerning the heart, "What the heart desires, the will chooses, and the mind justifies." The Prayer Book shows that it is not merely the mind that needs to change. In the Decalogue we are led to say after each commandment: "...incline our hearts to keep this law" and finally, "write all these thy laws in our hearts we beseech thee." The first commandment is, "Thou shalt love the Lord with all thy heart."

At the beginning of the Eucharist we are urged to "Lift up our hearts" and at reception "feed on hin in thy heart by faith with thanksgiving." This This inadequate word for repentance (metanoia) has led to thinking that the issue is willpower that has led to the virulent heresies of Pelagianism, Nestorianism, and Adoptionism. If only the will were strong then we would do what our minds know we should do. Unfortunately the will is only an agent of the heart. It is our hearts that must change - metakardia. To use a word meaning change of mind to mean repentance is like taking a heart attack victim to see a psychiatrist instead of a cardiologist.

The title of Ashley Null's work on Cranmer is Cranmer's Doctrine of Repentance: Renewing the Power to Love. Unfortunately the sub-title was not put on the cover of the book. It's too bad because the negative sense of "change of one's mind," that has lead to repentance meaning only remorse and sorrow, loses the positive side of metakardia, the promise of "renewing the power to love" by changing, not merely our minds, but also our hearts.

The change of heart by renewing the power to love recovers a gospel dimension to repentance seen heretofore only as sorrow and remorse. The novelist, E. M. Forster, claimed that "of all means to regeneration, remorse is surely the most wasteful. lt cuts away healthy tissue with the poisoned. It is a knife that probes far deeper than the evil." Forster is speaking for the culture, this strange land to which we sing. Our song must correct this impression. Mere self-reproach, sorrow and remorse is not the song we are to sing. The Lord's Song is the promise of renewing the power to love. This must be an essential part of the Lord's Song in this increasingly strange land. Repentance -metakardia is not mere obligation. Renewing the power to love is a gift. It is a blessing, an opportunity. Who does not need to renew the power to love? We need to listen to the sensitive talents of a novelist like. E.M. Forster whose hurt from remorse, stemming from a graceless understanding of repentance, led him away from Christianity.

How do we sing the Lord's Song from a church that compromises the Incarnation faith? It started long ago when the first Lambeth Conference was called inspite of strong resistance by bishops of the Church of England. Fearing it would become a synod dealing with doctrine, many of these bishops boycotted the first meeting. Ten years later it was an embarrassing fact that the archbishop who called the second meeting was one who had boycotted the first conference ten years previously.

Professor Paul Valliere's recent excellent book Conciliarism: A History of Decision Making in the Church, describes these events and shows the running theme of "Synodophobia" that prevented Lambeth Conferences from having any power to enforce doctrine. (Synods have doctrinal power, conferences do not. Hence, the Lambeth Conference.) This timidity in regard to any enforceable limits to doctrine became the hallmark of Anglicanism on each side of the Atlantic. Bishop Ernest Barnes, Bishop of Birmingham, had no doctrine of the Incarnation or the Atonement. He claimed, "Men saw that Jesus was a very good man, so they called him the Son of God." (Memories and Meanings, W R. Matthews, Hodder and Stoughton, London, 1969, p 310). He was a severe problem for Archbishop Fisher who gave a stinging rebuke to Barnes in a speech at Convocation. Fisher assumed that a gentleman, hearing of his departure from his ordination vows, would resign but Barnes did no such thing. He continued to serve as Bishop of Birmingham.

It was once said of the Quakers that "their religion gave birth to prosperity and was devoured by its offspring." Could a similar statement apply to much of Anglicanism? "Its religion gave birth to social standing and was devoured by its offspring?" A similar occasion occurred in The Episcopal House of Bishops when several Anglo-Catholic bishops brought charges against Bishop James Pike for denying his vows to creedal affirmation of Christology and Trinity. Pike was rebuked for the "tone and manner" of his denials but not for the substance. That was not a gentlemanly thing to do.

It is obvious that holding Christians accountable doctrinally is among the least popular ventures in our culture. But, with the failure of restraint by the Gentleman's Code, is there any alternative to confessional discipline if we are to sing the Lord's Song and not some other? This is especially urgent when the content of our song is the only hope for our culture. The Anglican Communion has been faced in these recent decades with departures from its acknowledged teaching. Both archbishops George Carey and Rowan Williams refused to allow the erring provinces to be held accountable. Archbishop Welby's actions are not reassuring

How creedal discipline is to be managed is crucial. We must not forget that we have no mere two-person Trinity. We must make every effort to show that law does condemn but that it also leads us as a schoolmaster and custodian to the Incarnate Word, the subject of our song. We must acknowledge that the spirit with we have defended the faith has often not been a holy one. We must not tire of the necessary scholarly discipline to show the disastrous pastoral, spiritual, and cruel implications that result from heresy and apostasy. Orthodoxy must be gospel and not law. Jesus, without his full humanity, leaves us unredeemed. Jesus, without his full divinity, leaves sin and death the last words. The new heart in true repentance can by the Holy Spirit give us graceful courage for confessional accountability no matter how unpopular that is.

Given Anglican and Episcopal and Western pretension it is an irony of biblical proportions that our apostolic encouragement comes from the Third World, for a long time an object of our condescension. Like the Methodist Church our ties, especially to Africa, are both a comfort and an encouragement to sing the Lord's Song of the Incarnation in this increasingly strange land.

There is a subtle but important difficulty about the doctrine of the Incarnation. I would contend that all doctrine is law, all Christian teaching is what we must believe. We must believe that Jesus Christ is both fully God and fully man. That law condemns all who do not believe. The great evangelical doctrine of justification by faith itself is a law that condemns all who do not believe it. How does our Lord's Song make doctrine good news and not condemnation?

There are two functions of the law for Christians. One is to tell the truth about belief and behavior which inevitably condemns all sinners. As John Stott tells us, "A dreadful function of the law is to condemn." But a more important function of the law is to be a schoolmaster or custodian to bring us, not to a doctrine of the Incarnation that condemns if we don't believe, but to a flesh and blood sacrificial Person: Jesus. This is not to say the doctrine of the Incarnation is wrong, or unimportant, only that the doctrine did not die on the Cross for us.

There is a crucial difference between belief and trust.-1- My engineer son has built a ferrocement bridge spanning a 20 foot canal. It is less than two inches thick, a remarkable achievement. My wife believes it will hold up if she crosses it but she will not cross it because she does not trust it. Is this not a widespread condition even for believers and defenders of the faith? It's not the doctrine we believe that saves us. It is Jesus, whom we trust, Jesus who saves us. I recall with gratitude Carroll Simcox making this point: "no creed, no doctrine, not even the doctrine of the Incarnation died on the Cross for us."

If we orthodox singers sing only about orthodox doctrine and not about the person Jesus, we will sing the right words but the tune will be flat, off key, and no one will want to hear it. If we cannot do this we can humbly pray for a new heart a metakardia.

To sing the Lord's Song is to sing about Jesus Christ knowing that now this doctrine no longer condemns: "There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus." (Rom. 8:1) This point is the soteriological aspect of the Incarnation, the good news of salvation that flows from the Incarnate Lord. One of the greatest Anglicans of all times was Charles Simeon (1759-1836), Vicar of Holy Trinity, Cambridge, for 53 years. The historian Lord Thomas Babington Macauley claimed, "As to Simeon, if you knew what his authority and influence were, and how they extended from Cambridge to the most remote corners of England, you would allow that his real sway in the church was far greater than any primate." (Hugh Evan Hopkins, Charles Simon of Cambridge, Eerdmans, Hodder and Stoughton, Seven Oaks, UK, p.118)

As a student, he was required to go to Holy Communion once a term. Taking this command seriously he prepared himself by reading The Whole Duty of Man, an anonymous 17th century moralistic but recommended tract which led him to believe that a sinner had no place at the Lord's Table. This led him to despair. He knew, although unworthy, he must go to Communion the next term.

Fortunately, he was given a work by Thomas Wilson (1663-1755), a high church Bishop of Soder and Man, where he read about the Incarnation in all its soteriological splendor. In Wilson's book on the Incarnation, God Made Man, he learned that God did not merely reward righteousness and condemn sin but enabled righteousness by forgiving sin. From then on Simeon's ministry was an unparalleled graceful song of the Lord in that strange land of 18th and 19th century England.

Similarly it is possible to affirm orthodox doctrine and yet miss the saving aspect of the Incarnation. Archbishop William Laud wrote 327 pages, in the Conference with Fischer the Jesuit, explaining how the English church differed from that of Rome. Yet he never once mentioned justification by faith. This was in spite of the fact that just a few years previously Richard Hooker claimed that justification is the grand question that yet lies between us and the Church of Rome.

Soteriology is how God's action in the Incarnation frees us from bondage, forgives our sins treats us as righteous in justification and begins to make us righteous in sanctification. Without this soteriological good news the Incarnation becomes for us mere law to be obeyed or to be condemned if not believed. With this soteriological good news God's love in Jesus becomes our love of him and our neighbor.

It is the soteriology of the Incarnation, the freeing and saving action of God in Christ, without which the doctrine of the Incarnation is only an obligation to be believed. C. S. Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia, The Voyage of the Dawn Trader, gives us a wonderful example of true repentance I>(metakardia) in the figure of Eustace. He tried repeatedly to shed his old clothes, the scales of his own sin, only to have new ones appear. Finally, with humility and great pain, he allowed Aslan to give him new clothing, a new heart, a new freedom. Aslan's action shows that it is the love we have been given in Christ that brings a new heart.

Generally speaking, it seems not to be given to historians to be poets. However, Willian Bright (1824-1901) is an encouraging exception. He was the Regus Professor of Ecclesiastical History and Canon of Christ Church, Oxford, for 33 years. He was a keen high churchman but he often expressed this often neglected soteriology among high churchmen. Nothing makes the Lord's role become more coherent than the words he wrote for this hymn.
Look, Father, look on his anointed face
And only look on us as found in him:
Look not on our misusing of thy grace,
Our prayer so languid and our faith so dim:
For lo! Between our sins and their reward,
We set the passion of thy Son our Lord.
The Hymnal 1982 #337

In his hymn #242 he shows a spirit of concern for doubters that should be an essential part of our song.

How oft, O Lord, thy face has shone on doubting souls whose wills were true,

Thou Christ of Peter and of John thou art the Christ of Thomas, too.

O Savior, make thy presence known to all who doubt thy Word and thee.

And Teach us in that Word alone to find the truth that sets us free.

The Hymnal 1982 #242.

In an academic world that almost excludes the pastoral concern for doctrine as affecting real people, it is exhilarating to be taught a prayer by this quintessential scholarly high churchman.

O most loving Father, who willest us to give thanks for all things, to dread nothing but the loss of thee, and to cast all our care on thee, who carest for us; Preserve us from faithless fears and worldly anxieties, and grant that no clouds of this mortal life may hide from us the light of that love which is immortal, and which thou hast manifested unto us in thy Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen (Collect for Sunday after Epiphany)

These examples of mercy, justice, freedom, and love all stem, not from a mere doctrine, as important as that is, but from what God has done for us in his Son, the flesh and blood person, Jesus.

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ENDNOTES

1: There is an exceedingly helpful recent work on the distinctive meaning of pistis by Teresa Morgan. Roman Faith and Christian Faith: Pistis and Fides in Early Roman Empire and Early Churches Oxford, New York, Oxford University Press, 2015.