why the title?

By the name Dust and Light we have tried to capture an intermingling of the visible, tangible, material realm (represented by the word ‘dust’) with the invisible, intangible, spiritual realm (represented by the word ‘light’), in the thought and content of this blog.

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Explanation: At various points in church history, a sharp dichotomy has been placed between the unseen spiritual realm, and the physical world which we see around us. Such a dichotomy is characteristic of the ‘Gnostic’ heresy, faced by the early church, which devalued the material in favour of the spiritual, the body in favour of the soul. While the early church fathers did indeed dismiss this as heresy, elements of Gnosticism have often re-emerged in various forms and contexts throughout church history. More significantly, Gnostic tendencies are evident in a range of theological streams today (often evangelical). This is sometimes in an obvious sense, as with forms of ‘dispensationalism’, or in more subtle ways, such as with those who would privilege the ‘saving of souls’ over ‘good works’, for example. Frequently, even if the material realm is given value, it is primarily an instrumental value to serve the spiritual, rather than any kind of intrinsic value in and of itself.

It is our contention that such tendencies are, at root, founded in heresy, as the early church fathers stated. Any proper doctrine of creation will attest to the intrinsic goodness of the material world, and the doctrine of the incarnation substantiates this quite radically. That God became flesh affirms, first and foremost, the basic goodness of the material creation, of the body and of time. The hope to which Christians are called is not some other-worldly, shadowy existence of souls after death, but to the resurrection of the body and to a renewed creation (cf. Rom. 8). To be committed to God’s Kingdom is to pray and work towards God’s rule being made manifest ‘on earth as in heaven’ (cf. Matt. 6:10). And the final consummation is when God will ‘be all and in all’ (cf. 1 Cor. 15); that is, when He and the aspects of His nature – beauty, truth, goodness, justice, peace, joy, love – will be infused in everything which is both seen and unseen; when all things tangible and intangible will sparkle with, and share in, the perfect essence and life of God.

It is towards this final state, when the material and spiritual will be infused, that we hint with our (admittedly vague) title ‘Dust and Light‘.

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Application: This leads on to a number of practical applications for the nature and trajectory of our blog posts:

1. While we recognise the need for Christians to be ‘more spiritual’, we do not mean this in an airy-fairy, other-worldly sense, but rather in an expressly physical sense – bodies infused with the Spirit of God, able to fulfil humanity’s role in creation as originally intended.

2. As this suggests, we acknowledge the importance of both ‘mandates’ given in Scripture – the original ‘cultural mandate’ in Gen. 1:28, and the ‘redemptive mandate’ (or ‘Great Commission’) found in Matt. 28:19-20. Redemption is not simply a means of getting souls into heaven, but a means of healing humanity and reversing the effects of the fall, to enable men and women to fulfil their original role as stewards of creation and bearers of God’s image on earth. The missio Dei - the mission of God – is concerned with both the redemption of fallen humanity, and the restoration of creation to its original glory. Both are necessary tasks for the church.

3a. As such, we recognise the intrinsic value of ‘culture’ as the site of ‘human-makings’ on earth. We believe that all truth, all goodness, all beauty etc. share in and reflect aspects of God’s nature, and are therefore worth seeking for their own sake, through the fields of academic study, art and so on. In the end, all truth is God’s truth, all goodness is God’s goodness, all beauty is God’s beauty; that we appreciate and share in these is a result of God’s grace, and is His gift.

3b. Similarly, there is no realm from which ‘religion’ or ‘theology’ or ‘God’ can be excluded. The Gospel is first and foremost a public proclamation of Good News to the world which institutes a community, a social body – the church. Christian faith is not a private matter for the individual believer, but is overarching and all-encompassing. The church is therefore to have a distinctive voice, and to embody a distinctive witness, in the realms of politics, economics, society etc.; it is to be a visible entity in the public realm defined, predominantly, by its difference, strangeness and peculiarity – that is, by its faith in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, expressed in the lives of its members.

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These three points are not exhaustive, but they may help give you an idea of where we’re coming from and where we might be going with this blog. Feel free to have a look around, read, and join the conversation if you wish. Whatever you do, have a lovely day!