Men, Women and Genesis

From a recent issue of Christians for Biblical Equality e-newsletter:

Dr. Manfred T. Brauch, former president and professor of biblical theology at Eastern Baptist (now Palmer) Theological Seminary, has recently published Abusing Scripture: the Consequences of Misreading the Bible (InterVarsity Press, 2009). In the paragraphs below, he briefly introduces us to several abusive readings of biblical texts and of Scripture as a whole—dealt with extensively in the book—which contribute to what he calls “the heresy of gender inequality.”
In my previous column (based on my recently published book, Abusing Scripture), I argued that the “abuse of words” often does violence to the meaning and message of Scripture. I illustrated this by showing that the designation of the woman as man's “helper” (Gen. 2:20) does not show her as a subordinate person, but rather as a person of strength and vitality, whose creation rescues man from his aloneness. In this column, I want to place this insight into the larger literary and theological context of Genesis 1-3. For it is the abuse of this context in Scripture that continues to undergird a patriarchal understanding of the male-female order.
In Genesis 1:26-27, human beings, in male-female polarity, are created in the image of God. In that male-female polar complementarity they are, together, given the mandate to exercise responsible sovereignty within and over the rest of the created order. These affirmations are powerful theological convictions that stand radically against the cultural religious environment within which Israel's faith traditions were being shaped. For in that environment, women were largely held to have been created from inferior material.
This general male-female nature and structure of humanity, presented in Genesis 1, is now articulated in Genesis 2 in terms of its particularity in the man-woman relationship (Gen. 2:18-23) as the grounding for the covenant relationship of marriage (Gen. 2:24-25; cf. Mk. 10:5-9). Viewed from the theological perspective of Genesis 1:26-27, the reason why the animals cannot be man's “suitable helper” is because they are not created in the “image of God.” They are not the man's equal, cannot correspond to him “face to face” (“fit for him”), and cannot be his partners in exercising stewardship over the earth.
Further, the woman's creation from the man (Gen. 2:21-22), as “bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh” (Gen. 2:23), signifies that she is made from the same essence and substance, a further confirmation of the Genesis 1:26-27 affirmation of their equality—both before God (as God's co-image bearers) and in relationship with each other.
These literary and theological connections—together with the meaning of “helper” as having redemptive, rather than subordinate connotations—make it impossible to interpret the Genesis 2 narrative of man and woman in terms of either essential or functional inequality. The concept of a creationally intended male-female hierarchy (superior-inferior, leader-follower, authority figure-assistant) is the result of the abusive reading of Scripture, and, as such, is contrary to the order of creation.
This literary and theological unity of Genesis 1-2 provides the overarching theological anthropology for our hearing of the male-female relationship that is a result of the fall in Genesis 3. The “rule of the man over the woman” (Gen. 3:16) must be seen as a dramatic departure from the order of creation. The Creator's good design and intent for the man-woman relationship has become twisted and distorted. The hierarchical over-under condition of the male-female relationship is bondage to sin. It is, therefore, not prescriptive (as God's intention for the man-woman relationship) but descriptive (the nature of that relationship when marred by sin). It is God's creation design, not its distortion by sin, that must function as the normative paradigm for this relationship.
Within the larger literary and theological context of the whole of Scripture, the human condition—in its distorted, cursed existence—is the object of God's redeeming and transforming work. This work culminated in Jesus Christ, whose sacrificial servanthood liberates humanity from its bondage to sin—including the cursedness of male-female hierarchy.

Sermons and thought

One of the aspects of sermonising that I have found frequently distressing is that sermons are often removed from the cultural and intellectual milleu in which I move (I know, that might be just that my particular pathways are byways of interest to no one else); now, I don't expect a sermon to become a journalistic comment on the affairs of the world, but I would like it to equip me to think in a godly or spiritual way in the world in which I live. Some connects, even if contrary ones, could be interesting. There are usually none (see my earlier comments on my experience at the cathedral).

Although I do remember one minister using a current opera as his point of departure to take us into the scriptures: was good, as I was quite interested in opera at that time.

Another thing I notice is that sermonisers seem to think that their hearers (a) don't think, or are (b) obsessed by the intellectually banal. I expect sermons to have some content that will appeal intellectually, and keep me in some touch with theological trends of the day...but rarely does this occur either.

It is as though the average semoniser is keen to keep his or her hearers away from the intellectual life of the church; but that's not all: it is also, it seems, to keep our thoughts away from anything of practical value.

I reflect on a time whcn my family was facing significant challenges, and the sermons we were hearing were so 'thin' and one-dimensionsal that they were irrelevant in practical terms to equip us to deal with the struggles we were facing. They didn't need to speak directly to our specifics, but they did need to lift us to God, to give us an eternal perspective, and to help us put our thoughts towards our Lord, and away from the details of our concerns, while recognising the struggles that life brings. There was none of that!

As a family, we felt sadly let down as we heard a bunch of 'teaching' on a gospel, I think it was, that seemed stuck at the lexical level, and failed to see the looming glory of the Spirit's presence amongst us.

That was the saddest neglect of opportunity I could contemplate. It came close to driving us from church attendance.

God and ethical questions

A friend, who is rather 'web shy' suggested I post this piece he wrote in comment on an article in recent Sun Herald newspaper.

Dear Leslie,

 

I wish to address some issues you raised in today’s “Can you be good without God?”.

 

Clearly, the most significant element in your article was your admission that secular people cannot “know such justifications [as, for example, the Golden Rule] for such ethical injunctions [such as ‘stealing is wrong’] are correct”. According to you it’s an entirely adequate “solution” to this intractable problem for secular ethical theory by claiming that “[u]ltimately, even the most rigorously logical ethical theories require some things be taken on faith.” This is profoundly unacceptable given that your apologetic provides no further warrant for the atheist meta-ethic, preferring to spend valuable column inches punching holes in a straw man opponent, oddly labelled as “believers”. I say oddly because it strikes me as somewhat disingenuous that you initially make a distinction between the two ethical camps on the basis that the “religious” group is faith-based, and thus implicitly is inferior, yet, in the end, this component, faith, is entirely what your own secular defence is constructed upon.

 

Of course, the assessment of the “religious” ethical theories as being inadequate may be entirely justified, as you allude, in as much as theirs have yet to take Plato’s Euthyphro dilemma seriously. I am the first to admit that many of my fellow Christians stand guilty for proclaiming that something is morally wrong solely because God says it is without as much as a skerrick of supplementary argument.

 

Nevertheless, as I stated, your article began with what seemed to be a rugged and worthy alternative to the “faith” ethic but, in the end, failed because it borrowed the putative brute fact of its adversary’s “you just have to believe”.

 

Which brings me to my other point: Why have you begged the question that stealing is wrong? Surely, given that the secular position is ultimately, as you concede, one of faith and not substance, then all things are up for grabs and thus I question that you have an epistemic right to claim that stealing is wrong. Isn’t it at all conceivable in an alternative atheist world that your a priori assumption that stealing is wrong could be restated by the equally justifiable ‘not stealing is wrong’. After all, even in this world I can claim to have met many, many people who believe that stealing from [insert any number of non-me persons or groups here, like, the rich, the poor, multinationals, Woolworths, your neighbour’s husband etc.] is a good thing.

 

Learning by sermon?

So, if a sermon is an unlikely vehicle for learning, what is to be done?

I think that Erkel's article contains some helpful tips, but to encourage learning requires giving learners a structured experience that goes from context to detail...and back and forth between those levels.

Engagement is critical but the psychological coolness of a sermon, the level of arousal it stirs, or even requires (that is, none, actually) is not conducive to learning, to either transfer of information, building knowledge or transforming belief or behaviour.

For this there is the need to expose one's assumptions, thoughts and beliefs to scrutiny: one's own and others'. This suggests that discussion, dialogue of some form, putting up argument and counter arguments are all required.

The simple idea of pre-reading, using a study guide (and one that doesn't cause bare 'comprehension' level answers to be given), then having those concepts developed challenged in discussion, followed by consolidating reading or even writing up a journal of reflections would be of assistance.

For a biblical example of this, see Acts; where Paul reasoned daily in Tyrannus' hall. This was no one-way discourse, imposed on people, but didactic discussion, where people could test their understanding and its implications with the teacher. For some reason we don't do this in most church contexts. Although, I must say, that at the York St lunch time Bible talks, Justin does invite discussion, and 'tis a great thing.

Linking reading, hearing, reflecting (conversing) and acting are all parts of learning. Just listening is so attenuated as to only allow the very keen to gain anything, IMO.

A visit to the Cathedral

Family and I went to St Andrew's Cathedral for a pre-Christmas service (20 December 2009), at the invitation of a friend.

For some reason, I had thought that the choir (one of the choirs?) would be singing, and so was looking forward to a feast of traditional Christmas choral festivities. Alas, that is to be on Christmas eve, so I experienced instead something called 'city church' which was not really church as I thought I knew it!

A few things stood out; some about the premises, some about the service, others about the sermon, and then there's the 'atmosphere'.

Sermon

I have heard Phillip Jensen give sermons in the past, and this one was consistent with my memories of his work.

However, I thought that I’d remembered his sermons to have more ‘content per unit time’ than I think this one did. That is, he took too long to address what he did; could have been shorter, or on the other hand, the sermon was relatively content free. It was about the prodigal son…about repentance…and drifted to a few other topics.

My distinct feeling though, was that the sermon was disconnected (ironic being as it is the year of being connected…“Connect 09” being the diocesan slogan for the year); it did attempt to touch on things that made reference to my life experience, but this was slender; over all it was a ‘theoretical’ sermon that didn’t touch anything that I could make sense of: of course, I could understand it as a work of English speaking; but it failed beyond that for me, a believer, and moreover an evangelical one! I wonder how it would have been received by a non-believer.

I certainly agree as to the importance of repentance as the motion of the will that opens us to God, but without showing any recognition of people’s life struggles, concerns or interests, it was more than cold, remote and uninviting. This nature was reinforced by Phillip referring to his “work with alcoholics”. I hope I’m not quibbling over words, but labelling people as such, instead of talking about “people who struggle with alcohol addiction” or “people who struggle with substance abuse”, for example, suggests a basic disinclination to meet and know people, as people with feelings, hopes and struggles. Instead it seems to regard people as occupants of a category, and let’s deal with the category, not the people. The references to ‘repentance’ were of this ilk, I thought.

By comparison, read how Jesus encountered people: it was in the midst of their lives, in relationship with them, and getting involved with their concerns and interests. He did not apply a de-personalised rhetoric, but engaged them to show them their relationship to the kingdom of God.

One good thing in the sermon was that Phillip talked about God as creator and that he created by speaking the creation into existence (see how far and wide the sermon ranged!).

With this I certainly agree, and I read it as consistent with the Bible in Genesis 1, etc.

God’s speaking the creation into being demonstrates his ‘god-ness’ in that he relies upon no secondary causes, or functional intermediaries (which must then be ‘givens’ and independently existent, as he doesn’t mention creating them) to bring about his will. Nothing stands between God and his creation, except, of course, Christ! His word also has immediate effect: in opposition to those who think that the Genesis 1 account is a kind of topical representation of naturalistic/evolutionary development, the account rather represents the creation as entirely responsive to God’s will and that will is totally effective. I can’t think how un-godlike it would be for God to speak, and a few billion years later, lo and behold, there it is! Nor is this consistent with Genesis 1 and the intimacy it shows between God and his creation, including us; time is the great killer of intimacy and given that we live in a Biblical framework, time interposed between God and us would kill that theological intimacy, as well, I would suggest; the consequence being that to so add to the Scripture undoes it and mis-represents both the creator and his relationship to his creation in a fundamental manner as to reject the capacity of words to convey reliable meaning.

Of course speaking and its effect must have time and space coordinates, as our time-space experience is indicated by the scriptures as being continuous with it: the genealogical links make this plain as does the setting of Genesis 1: this is not off in another ‘world-experience’ accessible only by mystic rejection of the real world, but in this world: locatable (at least in principle), dateable and existentially accessible to us: that is, the result of determined will, not caprice, chance or ‘fate’.

The Service

My general impression of the service was that it was 'mechanical'. This was also my recollection of services at a previous church that Phillip had served at. The Bible reading, the prayer, the break for tea or coffee mid-way through the service (who would get thirsty in 20 minutes? don't people have kettles at home?)...all struck me as mechanical, perfunctory, uninvolved. Most delivered in a flat manner. The music was the only difference: the musicians seemed to be into it, and one of them sang her own song, which was quite lovely.

The welcome to the service was like that to an RSL club, joyless and impersonal. There was no farewell to speak of, when it would have been good for someone to shake one's hand and wish one the best for the evening, if not Christmas.

I have no urge to return.

The Building

My view had been that buildings were a convenience for the work of the gospel; but my experience here changed that.

The interior was disheveled, and looked un-cared-about. Reflecting on this, I thought that it demonstrated an attitude to people (because it is people who sit in, listen in, and see the inside of the building) that bordered on the contemptuous: "listen to what we say, agree with us, but we don't give a fig for your experience of sitting here, seeing the mess of disarranged choir stalls".

I think that a building whose interior invited the eye, indicated care for the experience of the people within it, would show the attitude 'we want you to be here, enjoy, feel comfortable and respected, so we might earn the right to be heard'. But none of that.

So, I thought, here we are in a building that represents the effort and love of generations of Christians to present and house the life of  faith and witness in this city, and it disparages itself...ironically, over the road from a major building by one of the world's most significant architects, whose work, only for commercial intent, does show a respect for the experience of its users that undoes the makeshift mess of an artless interior of the cathedral!

Poll on Beliefs

In today's Sydney Morning Herald, there is a report on a survey of 'belief' in Australia: Our faith today.

The survey was interesting on a number of points. See below on 'evolution', for example.

However, as relevant as this is to the blog, I was more interested in the way the questions blended a its questions from a naturalist point of view, without being able to examine that point of view itself, which is, of course, a belief.

Typical of naturalism, beliefs, some of which are antithetical to Christian theisim, were lumped in there: belief in psychic powers, in astrology; a survey I recall reading of in Southern Cross years ago reported that lack of belief in God went hand in hand with beliefs in such aberant ideas, and not the other way! It historically has been a robust Christian thesim that has over historical time eliminated these remnants of paganism and  replaced it with rational realism.

EVOLUTION:
42 per cent
Creation is a slippery topic. Even scientifically committed Christians feel honour-bound sometimes to grant God a role in the origins of life. That was not Darwin's view. The Nielsen poll untangled this confusion by asking respondents to choose between Darwin, Genesis and Design – the notion that humans developed over millions of years in a process guided by God.
Most Australians believe God played a part in the process. That He created all life at a stroke about 10,000 years ago is believed by 23 per cent of us. That He guided a long process over time is believed by another 32 per cent. The beliefs of Australian Christians are even more dramatic, with 38 per cent supporting Genesis and another 47 per cent favouring the God of Design.
In the year in which the 200th anniversary of Darwin's birth was celebrated around the world, only 12 per cent of Australian Christians believe his theory of natural selection. For all the talk of Darwin's preeminence in modern science, attitudes to evolution remain the litmus test of belief and disbelief in Australia. Christians offer the most meager support, while 89 per cent of those who deny God's existence back Darwin.
The figures for the US are more dramatic. Nielsen modelled its questions on a Gallup poll taken in America last year which revealed levels of hostility to Darwin in the general population that mimic the attitudes of committed Christians in Australia. Only 14 per cent of the US population preferred Darwin to God.

My only comment on the quote is to point out the common misunderstanding that Darwin's theory was of 'natural selection'. Not quite. His theory was that the easily observed phenomenon of natural selection, that was identified by the Christian, as we would say today 'creationist' biologist Edward Blyth, prior to Darwin was the driving force behind all known life deriving from a single original form of life, which somehow sprang into being. I don't think anyone minds 'natural selection' or even speciation, what is at issue is that all kinds of life derived from a basic kind. Noel Weeks also has an interesting article on this.

Sermons and not learning

The great failure of the sermon as a vehicle for learning is that as a medium it is not conducive to the changes required for learning. On one level if learning is about skill or knowledge development, then there are approaches that have nothing to do with sermons. I refer to the work of Sweller at UNSW, as an example, and here.

If we want to use the sermon to transform people's attitudes, then it may or may  not work. To bed down change, I think we need to reflect on the work of Stephen Brookfield, for instance.

But, what about for people new to Christian faith? Do sermons help them? Well, no. A more structured induction to the life of faith is needed. The early church approached this through a structured path into participation in the church, marked by such tools as the didache, or later, Augustine's enchiridion.

These days we do it differently. If one is lucky (blessed?) one will be able to spend time with a more experienced Christian reading the Bible together and praying and chatting, but this is usually short lived and fails to help a new Christian to the transformation of life and thought that flows out of conversion (and also this on thinking and this too on thoughts). Something better is needed, in my view to help the adult reorient her thought life, her assumptions about relationships and serving others, and taking up one's cross daily.

This thread started here.

Sermons and teaching

Often Christians of an evangelical bent look for "good teaching" in the sermons they hear. Do I also look for this?

In one way, yes. But I don't want a lecture, or a training discourse. Rather I want the speaker to engage with the Bible, or a theme, with reference to the Bible that is consistent with the orthodox reading of the Bible, or even challenge it, if this reading itself can be challenged from the Bible, to promote a few things:

a godly life; to bear the fruit of the Spirit, be cncouraged to live to the beat of a different drummer; also to think differently about self and relationships, about action and plans; to think Christly about such things.

Then, as one whe strives in this way, to be encouraged, and 'lifted up'; to see heaven, if in a small way.

Of course, this should be, has to be embedded in a Biblical sermonising, and sometimes, and even often, through expository sermons, so that I am helped to think about what the Bible says in relation to living as a Christian. So with this line of prophetic speaking I expect to learn, but learning as changed experience, in some degree, learning for the new life I seek to live; not learning as an abstract reference to the Bible, but learning as an existential encounter with Christ in the pages of his word, learning that will change me.

The trouble is, a sermon can't do this. I think it can encourage and show some parts of the way, but in a small way. Thus, it is one component of the Christian experience, but we must harness it with others: prayer chiefly, prayerful conversation with each other, reflection on service to those around us.

This thread started here.

Teaching "creationism"

The topic of religious eductation in public schools is one of some interest it seems. I noticed this blog on the topic of RE in the Sydney Morning Herald.

In part I quote:

The lack of attention to the most influential component of CRE, the “Christian” part, has put us in a spot of bother. It started when the child came home and proudly announced that God made everything. He showed his atheist father a workbook with the following activity.
Fill in the blanks:
G_D created the sun
G_D created the sky
G_D created the earth
Meh. I thought it was pretty harmless. Perhaps even mildly amusing. God is up there with Santa for me. It’s nice to believe if that’s what floats your boat. If your faith brings you joy, and helps you lead a better life, go for it. If you are Christian and find it offensive that I have put God on the same level as Santa, I apologise.
...
My husband was not so nonchalant.
He flipped his lid and started ranting about brainwashing and how if this is the best Christianity can come up with to teach their religion, then it’s not saying much for the religion. Sharing basic values of the Christian philosophy was ok, but teaching six year olds creationism was where he drew the line. He challenged my six year old, asking for proof of God’s existence, even recommending some questions he could ask his CRE teacher next week.

Interesting views of the matter!

I'm glad that the husband picked up the point of it, though. What caught me was that he considered a piece of standard Christian belief to be 'creationism' which is reserved in church circles, as far as I know, for people who believe that Genesis 1 provides a direct account of the sequence of events of creation. (Of course, most people do not consider "creationism" to have anything to do with the origin of the soul...its older usage).

A well informed 6 year old could of course have asked what his father knew, and I mean really KNEW about the origin of life. The only answer could be 'diddly squat'; because that's all anyone knows. The same answer stands for what is REALLY known about evolution.
He could also have challenged the metaphysical basis of the question; which would leave most fathers gasping, they, being average blokes, with poor grasp of the philosophical field of basic questions: see Alvin Plantinga for help on that one.

Alternatively, our perceptive child could have observed that no one lives as though the personal is an epiphenomenon of matter; we all live as though the personal, or the capacity to 'will' has basic significance (basic as in philosophically basic): and yet how odd this would be if it is mere accident.

Still, we can comfort ourselves with faint amusement that an intellectual tradition which is deeply structured by Christian faith, with a frame of reference for enquiry that has its roots in the medieval church with its reorientation to modernism by Martin Luther is the one in which questions of its roots can be asked.

From NT to OT

I often attend a lunch time communion service; tis a wonderful thing. As part of the service we are blessed with a brief sermon, usually from an older, and in some cases, retired servant of the church. The blessing is not in their brevity, I might add, but in their content.

The other day, the president made a number of remarks that touched on the interests of this blog.

He told us that OT history was the basis of all that comes in the NT: the miracles in the latter being associated with faith in the creator; which creation, of course is set out in the OT, as part of its history!

He went on to say that God is established as the cause of creation in Genesis, and this is one of the parts of history that underlies faith. Our faith is not the airy faith of the one who rejects that God existentially intersects with our historical flow, but on the contrary the concrete faith of one who relies on God to do and be as he not only says, but showed that it was God that said it, in Christ, emmanuel.

Some further remarks were added as to the fact that science could not 'prove' that God created, but nor could it prove the opposite. I feared here that we were leaping out of the conrete biblical ontology into the idealism that lets us say that two contradictory things can be true at the same time in the same relations! I hope not. I hope he was just saying that it is not a matter of observation or deduction from the physical creation (but not denying there is some validity in that) but that it was a matter of that faith that is founded in the acts of God in history.

A sermon hearer's hopes

Over at Justin's blog, he some time ago did a series on 7 things he's learned about preaching in 7 years.  Nice blog idea!

As a sermon listener, I thought it would be a suitable exercise for late on Friday evening to set down some thoughts about 35 years of sermon listening (well, more actually, but let's not go into that!).

I liked Justin's seven, but I don't think I could distil my thoughts to seven points. Still, I'll try.

One thing I hope to bring to my observations is many years experience of public speaking, training, leading seminars, technical teaching (for a few years) and formal studies in adult education and training facilitation; maybe that'll provide a different perspective. At least I hope it may be of some benefit to...well, someone!

Firstly, I wonder, and have always wondered, what a sermon is to achieve. Is it meant to teach, transform attitudes, change behaviour, comfort, encourage, rebuke, build community, entertain, impress?

Some might say all of those things (except the final two!), but in practical terms, based on what I hear people discuss after sermons, it is the final two that count; at least subconsciously!

If the sermon is meant to do anything other than comfort or encourge, then it is misplaced. It is not the right vehicle to teach, transform, change behaviour...just the  wrong medium entirely.

We have the tension also of the use of the idea 'preach'. Does one 'preach' a sermon, or is preaching in the NT restricted to proclamatory discourse, with discourse intending to transfer information, build knowledge or change lives being 'teaching' or 'prophesy'; and neither need to, or maybe can occur in the liturgical setting that is the sermon.

This leads me to think that the sermon is a liturgical gesture, almost part of a rite, rather than anything that is truly educational. A web search on 'sermon' lead me to an interesting critique of sermonising that is worth a look, I think.

But, also what Paul has to say about discourse in the church: that is, amongst the company of believers, also bears consideration.

In I Corinthians 14:1-5, he sketches the range of this discourse, and its function. It is multifarious, but I like the words he chooses: "But one who prophesies speaks to men for edification and exhortation and consolation... one who prophesies edifies the church.

It would seem that these are significant components of discourse within the community of believers, yet sermons are emphasised as 'teaching' sessions, particularly in the evangelical tradition. But, as one who has been an educator, I might suggest that they are not such that learning is likely to occur; particularly if transformative learning is expected.

Rooted!

Our Bible talk today was in pleasantly different surroundings: in the cross aisle of the old church building. Justin pointed out with some amusement how we get excited over such young buildings here in Australia, when he'd just returned from London where St Helen's Bishopsgate had been there since the 14th C.

In talking about the gospel, Justin remarked that “the gospel is rooted in creation”, because here our connection with God is shown; in creation it is also shown that the only ‘given’ is God. This is not stated in the Bible as in any way allusive, mysterious or open to reinterpretation, the text is defiantly objective with respect to the parameters of our existence: time, space and event and it is these parameters used to delineate the creation acts.

To think that Genesis 1 does not show the real and actual connection of God with us, means that there is some other basis for the connection, but one that must no longer be direct or tangible, one that does not come from the text, but from somewhere else; thus, the realism that is inherent in the Genesis 1 description instantly dissipates, allowing all sorts of alternatives to gain ground as the creation and our connection with God ceases to be delineated in terms that are congruent with the world as we know it...so, some other terms, but ones which we cannot secure in our life-experience, world picture, or conceptual world-frame.

But, the underlying danger is that these inevitably speculative alternatives no longer must have God as the only given; they make other things potentially givens, and our generative allegiance wavers across a field of possibilities, rather than being anchored in God: is time also a given? What about ‘chance’ or ‘matter’, or ‘energy’ or the cosmos, or some principle of self directed change, or a ‘life-spirit’ that God merely co-opts and which must then exist independently of him?

It’s all up for grabs…because God is no longer the hub around which the creation across time and space revolves, and does Jesus then uphold it all?

Theological Scrap Heap

I was reading a text on the topic of creation recently; its treatment hinged on the largely fatuous, to my view, 'framework hypothesis' which really fails to tell us anything about the content or import of Genesis and defers instead to its putative arrangement...to what end is never clear, but that it removes from theologians the need to deal with the direct grammatical meaning of the text. Hiving off into constructs defeats the text, it doesn't elucidate it, or connect it to us, which is all the Bible is about: connecting God to us (through Christ, of course). Thus, everything, including the creation account is about this, and nothing else; although it touches other things incidently.

So where do the texts end that are not properly encountered by theology...in the theological scrap heap, of course: I think of the genesian chrono-genealogies, for example, but also the Lukan genealogy (which is slightly different), the creation account in its fulness, including its presentation in a sequence of 6 active days and a day of rest. To say, for instance, that the days' sequence is simply to permit the framework hypothesis is the result of a faulty engagement with the text, in my view. See here for discussion of the framework hyp.

Which world story?

At church on 22 Nov 09, the sermon mentioned people who declined in their Christian profession. I mentioned one such friend to the speaker afterwards. He asked the reason.

Now, this hadn't occured to me before, but the fellow who had this experience only talked about it in terms of one thing: he didn't use this phrase, but it was about competing world stories, or world narratives. He was persuaded by the evolutionary world story and clearly stated that on this basis he rejected the biblical world story.

1 World Story, or 2?

At St. Philip's last Thursday (19 Nov 09) I unfortunately missed the talk. Here's the promo:

We'll be hearing today from Andrew Katay, another of Justin's good friends, and Senior Minister at Christ Church Inner West Anglican Community.

Here's a taste of what Andrew will be challenging us with today:

" It's the great assumed story of our culture - the fabulous advances of science have left God in retreat, occupying a smaller and smaller space, until eventually (if the 'New Atheists' have their way), he will disappear altogether. But is the story right? Are science and God competitors? This Forum offers an opportunity to step back and consider an alternative. "

(I note the word "challenge", perhaps I wanted to join discussion, or be interested, or even entertained, or maybe I wanted to give a challenge...see my previous post on this.)

One reason I'd have liked to attend was that Mr Katay was known while ministering to students at Sydney University, to espouse a mediating line that allowed the blend of, well, not science, but materialist dogma and Christian faith; I don't know that it worked then, but I would have been keen to hear what he said this time.

There's plenty on this topic, of course, a few items new (James Hannam's God's Philosophers, for example) , and some old (The Origin of Science, which includes links to Stanley Jaki's work), and of course, Peter Harrison's great work on the genesis of modern science in orthodox Christian belief (notable a short duration and recent creation!).



The preliminary position I would take is that the notion of a conflict between 'science' and Christian faith is at root mistaken, Science has arisen out of a world story that rests in the Bible. Where conflict arises is when science equivocates into materialism or naturalism, and the conflict then is a natural outcome of world views.


This type of science promotes a world story that eliminates the creator and has the creation making itself: entirely as a result of forces acting within the cosmos. The world story of Christian faith is to the contrary.


Much theology is, in my view, insufficiently critical of the materialist world story, and insufficiently reflective of the biblical world story and its ramifications for our way of thinking, or approach to the world around us and finally for christology and then soteriology. Previous posts will give sufficient for me to not repeat myself here.


A postscript 7 Dec 09

But why, is there no conflict between science and Christian faith? This is the question I didn't address. Materialism would have it that it disinterestedly looks at the world and draws its conclusions simply from what it sees, unadorned by 'theory' or metaphysics.

Wrong. Materialism has no more direct contact with the world than any other endeavour. It is as embedded in a metaphysic as any religion is; that is, it proceed on the basis of a set of axioms, a view of the world that it takes as truly basic which is beyond its assessment.

Oddly, I think that materialism trades on the investment of Christian faith. The Bible has introduced a metaphysic which, while it has been centuries in development, has taken us far further than Greek empiricism ever did, or could; Aristotle notwithstanding. There is a certain reliance that must be made on the nature and state of the world before its examination can proceed reliably. If you truly think the world is subject to randomness, then science will likely drift into mysticism. If you truly think that the world proceeded from the hand of God in an orderly and realist manner...modern science; as Harrison has shown (and Jaki too, for that matter).

Science is the examination of the world on the principle that the world is genuinely and reliably examinable, and that we can draw robust and valid conclusions; however, for all its complexity, it is at the philosophical level of mechanics: it tells what is (exageration for effect, sorry!).

The first scientific gesture, I like to think, is Adam naming the animals in the book of Genesis: he more than named, on my understanding of the Hebrew cultural implication of that act, he identified them; that is he assigned a level of understanding to them to govern relationships between him and them.

Father of lights

At church last Sunday (15 Nov 09) morning the sermon considered part of James 1.

I was particularly taken by James' phrase referring to God in verse 17: "father of lights".

Clearly harking back to Genesis 1, where God is shown as the creator of the lights of the sky. But the word 'father' suggests to me a directness in creation that notions of intermediate steps, or machinery between God's creation and its result do not permit.

Also Jesus telling us to address God as 'our father' in the Lord's Prayer makes similar suggestions; not only of directness, which is congruent with Genesis 2:7, but of a fatherly love and kindness which does not line up with the notion of God creating us by an interposing machinery...considering fatherlyness, this becomes quite a repugnant idea, given the Genesis data. It would also make it difficult to make sense of the useage 'father'; if father, then how so, if the linkage between us as creatures and God as creator was not amenable to any evidence of his direct involvement in our origin (thus if the evidence points to our existence independent of God's creation it is hard to see how 'creation' would square with the real world). Suggestions of an indirect involvement have no biblical substance, but are typically derived from a utilitarian alignment of the biblical creation with materialist dogma: atheistic at worst, deist at best.

Not Christians, just Jesus!

This sign is being shown around on churches in Australia at the moment.


It suggests a number of things to me: the group of people called Christians has nothing to do with Jesus; if Christians are so unpleasant, as a result of their contact with Jesus, why would anyone want to risk following him?

It also suggests that the Christianity is ineffective in changing lives! How extraordinary; follow a person won't be able to deliver his mission to his followers!

The sign is a sad attempt to de-collectivise the Christian faith; its says that the outworking of Christian faith...the bride of Christ, is not worth being part of. Not good!

Abu Ghraib at St Philip's

Today at St Philip's Bible talk, Michael Jensen, a lecturer at Moore College was the guest teacher.

His talk was on torture, and while I was unfortunately not able to stay until he had finished (he ran a little over time and I had to leave for another appointment), I did hear the meat of his talk, I think.

It was surprising that his opposition to torture derived from Christ as being the one who died for us, bodily. At one level his anthropology (theological) was right: we are embodied creatures, and the incarnation, Christ, does set a high significance on people; but the point of my surprise was that he didn't take us back to the creation account in Genesis where we learn that the physical body is important: made by the hand of God (formed from dust, directly, not indirectly or by an intermediary in deist fashion and given life by God Gen 2:7), made in his image (Gen 1:27).

In fact, on the point of 'intermediary' I think one of the thoughts to be brought to bear on the connection between God the father and us as his creation is that Christ is our mediator: can we extend the concept of mediator beyond salvation? I think that John 1:3 permits such an extension.

So, to interpose between the father and his creation anything but Christ is to reduce Christ; thus the loose set of linkages that disconnect the father and his creation, operating through such ideas as theistic-evolution, or long-gap creation (which is finally reduced to theistic-evolution at root) serve to add to the work of Christ in a crazy haphazard manner that in fact removes the connection: God moves further and further from us, and the direct linkages that the Holy Spirit is at pains to refer to at many points in the Bible. I think of the Lukan genealogy, for one; but would also refer to Hebrews 11:3, for instance. I would not be surprised if there are more passages that would serve this line of thinking.

It seems to me that Christ's incarnation is in the stream of God's having made us as embodied and spiritually enlivened: Christ, our creator then takes this on...that would be the reason for treating the person, embodied, as inviolate; to preserve and honour the dignity of god-imageness; this is the source of the significance that Michael saw, IMO.

That he appeared to avoid this pivotal point in our understanding of who we are before God, and the Bible's enunciation of it I think de-powered his talk and left us with a Christ, an incarnation, not grounded in the creation as the setting of and basic context of God entering his creation as a creature (in real terms, and not symbolic ones) but one with but symbolic power at best: that is, with less power than it actually has.

Plutarch on science and religion

Science & religion
Plutarch’s attitude to scientific theory seems liberal, but this is a false impression. Scientific explanation, for Plutarch, is not free and independent of his theological beliefs. The question he asks is not ‘Is this theory a true account of the facts?’ but ‘Is it true and also compatible with the supremacy of god and good in the universe?’ p. 92

Aemilius is perhaps typical of the attitudes Plutarch admires. When the moon was eclipsed before the battle of Pydna, Aemilius made generous sacrifices to the moon and Heracles (Aem. 17.10). He is clearly not regarded as superstitious; he knows about the theory of eclipses but offers sacrifices as the customary gesture of piety. p.93

And Plutarch says this in Pericles 6:

“He seems also to have learned from his [Anaxagoras’] teaching to rise above that superstitious terror which springs from an ignorant wonder at the common phenomena of the heavens. It affects those who know nothing of the causes of such things, who fear the gods to the point of madness and are easily confused through their lack of experience. A knowledge of natural cuases, on the other hand, banishes these fears and replaces morbid superstition with a piety which rests on a sure foundation supported by rational hopes....

In my opinion, however, there was nothing to prevent both the scientist and the prophet from being right, since the one correctly diagnosed the cause and the other the meaning of the prodigy [an animal with a skull deformity]...Those who say that to discover the cause of a phenomenon disposes of its meaning fail to notice that the same reasoning which explains away divine portents would also dispense with the artificial symbols created by mankind.”

Comment
And don't we hear this today?
Those who say that the 'story' (meaning its not true) of creation in Genesis can sit along side evolutionary dogma and both can be true and tells us important things, if they are Christians, are in fact lapsing into a pagan cosmological dichotomy: they are saying the world is not 'one' but 'two'; raising questions about their view of the work of God in creation and as to what is really real. Is 'evolution' really real, which tells us that our ontological frame is really material and material interactions, divorced from the life of God, or is it the world as structured in Genesis 1 that is really real, and our ontological frame is the personal...ultimately, love?

Children

Another thing that I liked at the church I attended on Sunday: seems like a good children's ministry.

There's a morning tea each term where parents get to meet teachers. The teachers also seem willing to engage with parents.

Contrast that to a church of previous experience where teachers and parents were like ships passing in the night. I recall dropping my son at his class and the teachers not even looking at me, let alone greet me. Similarly at pick up time. No cheery anything! I may as well have been a photograph! I insisted that my son farewell his teachers and say thank you, as did I. But they never sought my name or disclosed their own; one I attempted to engage in discussion about the program gave a very reticent response!

There's plenty of distance that children's ministry could go; first off would be more mature teachers. In some places the teachers are barely children themselves; partly because of the Anglican practice of having children's church at the same time as adults church, so its the youth from the evening service who often teach Sunday School (sorry, old term for it). I'd be happier with teachers who had some experience of children, such as being parents.

The idea of the morning tea is a good one. I'd also like to see a dinner, perhaps twice a year, including a talk from the Sunday School coordinator on their approach and what had been done through the year. If that was coordinated with local scripture teaching in schools, even better.

The word coordinator reminds me; I was impressed with this morning's church that every man and his dog was not a 'leader'. Most people doing jobs were 'coordinators'. Excellent. I think in a church community we have ministers, generally, teachers and helpers: coordinators! The idea of 'leader' is not a helpful one as it passivates others into followers, when we are all followers of Jesus the Christ.

Idealism intrudes

The minister at the church I went to today remarked about people who decline to discuss Christianity because they are 'practical' people.

I think what they had encountered, or have in mind, is the idealist Christianity that can't connect the gospel with the real world we stand on. Those who peddle this distortion do so by, at the beginning, starting with a view of origins that separates the Bible's stream of history from our world. That is, they imagine that the Bible does not account for our origin, but merely attempts to delineate it by not telling what happened. Thus the idealist split between 'form' and 'appearance'; a pagan concept, intrudes and depowers the gospel!

This church was new to me and at the end of the service the minister invited people to prayer afterwards: very encouraging!

3 things

A friend (RE teacher in a secondary school) suggested that there are three dimensions to consider in church life:

>pastoral effort

>evangelism effort

>discipling effort.

They are not in order of importance, because they are all equally important.

Notice there's nothing there specifically about 'teaching', or 'community' or 'social program' or 'youth work' or 'children's ministry' or 'leadership' any other hip theme of the moment, because none of these 'work' for a church, in my assessment; they are all disconnected orphans of authentic church life if they do not form an organic part of the triad.

The grand program for the saints meeting together and growing together are covered, I think by the three domains which will take up those specifics that are relevant to particular church setting and membership as it changes over time.

So, what's the definition we put around these things?

Discipling effort:
This and pastoral effort are the two constants of Christian life: discipling is served by knowing the Bible, converting knowledge to practice, engaged prayer life, behaviour that reflects the fruit of the Spirit, it would be marked, I think, by increasing humility, peacableness and prayerfulness.

Evangelism effort:
Helping people seeing in their life-frame the connection they have with the diagnosis and response God makes to the human condition through and in Christ. Today, this sometimes starts with a more fulsome linking of thought world and the biblical thought world: often connecting with the origin of the world and our reality in the creation from God's word; the real tangible creation as described in Genesis 1, etc.

But, evangelism starts with making links that the other finds sensible and that make sense. I don't think it starts with any formulaic pronouncements that seem today to disconnect the gospel from people's life-world.

Pastoral effort:
I think pastoral effort has two principle markers: sharing each others' burdens, sacrificing for each others' well being, and encouraging each other to grow (that is, to augment discipling....they are all inter-related). It would be achieved by un-judging relationships of service and support; going out of one's way and sacrificing one's own interests, should that be needed....not letting a brother or sister go with the words 'be filled' when they are hungry, and need actual food!

Plutarch and the cosmos

On the cosmos
‘Those who study nature think that the heavens would be halted if strife were removed from the universe, that generation and motion would cease because all things would be in harmony; similarly, it is held, the Spartan lawgiver mixed into his constitution the spirit of rivalry and ambition; his aim was that the good should always have feelings of competition with one another, for he supposed that a system of reciprocal favours, without testing, was inactive and uncompetitive and should not be called concord’ (Plutarch, Agesilaus 5.5)

...at Lycurgus 29 he compares Lycurgus’ feeling of satisfaction over Sparata’s new constitution with Plato’s remarks on the contentment experienced by the god when he observed the formation of the cosmos and its first movement. p 42.

Comment
What people think when the world is detached from love: the Greeks didn't seem to have the God who is love at the start of their cosmogony, and so needed the results of the fall (strife) as the starting point of their understanding.

Farewellers?

Most churches go to some length to ensure that new-commers are welcomed to their meetings.

This morning I had reason to visit a church that was new to me. I was welcomed in a friendly manner, although I found it a little strange to be offered a 'temporary name tag'! I'm not a name tag kind of guy.

The service, unfortunately, left me a little cold. There was nothing particularly wrong with it; aside from having two introductory songs, a practice that I hate with a passion. Many decades ago I conducted that self same experiment: singing two hymns, consecutively; it went like an old pancake, so I didn't try it again. Standing for one song is quite enough; two is completely unnecessary.

Aside from that, the service felt like a childrens' service. No adult content at all; no sermon, which is not in itself a bad thing, but the puppet show which substituted was no substitute, really; although well done.

Not being able to see the words of a song sung during the show didn't help.

All that out of the way, I felt a little 'lost' upon leaving. My family not with me I didn't really want to stay for morning tea, but could have if met at the door by a 'fareweller'. As it was there was no one, no minister; the person who conducted the service or spoke was not in sight, so I just walked out, unnoticed. I felt unnoticed, if not ignored, and certainly not really welcome. Pity.

Plutarch and myth

Myth
“He then prays that it may be possible to purify the mythical by means of reason and so come to a view of what actually happened. But in cases where ‘the mythical defies what is credible and does not admit the admixture of probability’, he hopes that his readers will be indulgent and forgiving to his version of antiquity. To go back as far as this [to Romulus], he suggests, in a comparison with maps, is like filling in the details beyond the limits of the known world.

In this passage, Plutarch distinguishes in broad terms between a mythical and a historical period. [Characterised thus:]...all of them were the subject of traditons which seemed implausible to the ancients, and the tales of this period had therefore to be deciphered in the light of what was likely or probable.

It had long been accepted that historians should not traffic in ‘myth’, by which was meant an account of events that seems inconsistent with what is known or expected of ordinary human behaviour.” pp 161,2.

Comment
I've made a couple of earlier comments on history, time and myth. Its interesting to see how P. regarded myth as being outside the ken of the ordinary; and that he separates mythical 'time' and the historical period. Myth seems to be beyond investigationa and where all sorts of crazy things can happen and be given a type of story-line credibility. But their denial of the shared real world makes them to be purely stories that betray ignorance, and not providing any knowledge that will help us know the world we are in.

Contrast this to the biblical creation account which does place itself within dateable time and tells us all we need to know: that is that the world is inanimate and not populated by faries, that there is a real causal continuity across space and time and that a uniformity of experience is accessible to all comers: all we need to know to start on the path of understanding and living in the world.

Lying, or evangelism?

Read this marketing article from CNN Money carefully; and think about your local church's evangelistic activity...also carefully.

Plutarch and scientific explanations

From Alan Wardman's book "Plutarch's Lives".

These quotes in this and a few subsequent blogs throw some interesting lights on beliefs held in ancient times that are at leat worth hearing.

Scientific Explanations
“Plato’s influence was all-important in gradually persuading ordinary people that the scientific explanation of celestial phenomena is not unreconcilable with a religious attitude towards god... [Plutarch] is writing loosely, fired by the idea that philosophy had come to seem irreligious...[then an insight into how Plato saw the natural world] but Plato complained that they [Eudoxus and Archytas] were corrupting geometry by solving problems in the medium of perceptible objects instead of referring to invisible lines and planes.”

“But Plutarch manages to have it both ways; he admires geometry and at the same time considers that the usefulness of mechanics resides, not in adding to the amenities of life, but in holding up to the ignorant a clear and visible pattern of the invisible principles. The fact that Archimedes’ engines were of military use to his king is not felt to be so important” pp 204,5.

Comment
An example of the idealist distaste for the real world, and preference for the world of pure ideas: if idealists got thier way, I'm sure we'd still be walking in sandals instead of driving our cars!

I think that there are strong threads within Christain theology where idealism has supplanted a biblical take on reality, which is one of the aspects of biblical creation theology, IMO, that points us to the real world, rather than the make believe world of paganism.

Life since the 'Origin': lecture at the WEA

At the WEA on 21 September 09 I attended a lecture by Dr Adam Marchant (I think this is the right link) on Darwin’s work.

It was an unsurprising tour of the orthodox take on Darwin, naturally reinforcing the view that ‘nothing in biology makes sense without evolution’; which, of course, if you presuppose evolution occurring, then build a framework on this basis and use it as an interpretive grid, is inevitable: you get what you pay for!

Nevertheless, Marchant made some comments that are worth discussing.

At the date of the publication of Darwin’s work on evolution the idea of species not being immutable was ‘in the air’. Darwin’s own grandfather had published on the concept, and people like Lamarck and Wallace also had similar views. In short, the ‘time was right’ not only for scientific reasons, but for broad cultural reasons. Darwin had absorbed the progressivist influences of the time and further took into his thinking the work of Lyell and, as Marchant said, Malthus. Noel Weeks has an article that explores this in some detail

Darwin great contribution, Marchant claimed, was the ‘discovery’ of the idea of natural selection. But it was not Darwin’s discovery, he was its publicist, but the idea was previously published by Edward Blyth, a biblical creationist.

An important point to make is that the idea that species were fixed was not biblical, but Aristotelian, and at Darwin’s time the influence of modern science, informed by a biblical view of the cosmos, was able to shake of the pagan shackles inherited from the classical world.

Lamarck’s idea of change was volitionism, which was a sort of supernaturalism, or an intrinsic feature of living organisms (if my notes correctly reflect the lecture), but Darwin cut through this by proposing a complete materialist explanation.

Interesting to note that many Christians have missed Darwin’s point at this explanation. They attempt to marry a type of Christian supernaturalism with Darwin’s materialism to hope that ‘evolution was God’s mechanism for creating’. But Darwin’s point, possibly influenced by a deist line of thinking was that the mechanism’s role was to displace the supernatural and eliminate the need for God as a creative explanation!

Another factor that was in Darwin’s thinking was due to the primitive understanding of cell biology, with the smallest life unit being considered ‘protoplasm’ which contained an inherent life force, as a type of ‘super-material’ factor. This made it easy for Darwin to pin his hopes on the simple early life form and it mutating by lots of small steps into an array of different ‘higher’ life forms. The notion of ‘higher’ also betrays the progressivist flavour of Victorian England that strongly influenced Darwin.

Marchant attributed the advances at Darwin’s time to a number of factors:

“People used to look up to Aristotle” but started to look at the world instead.

It required an Enlightenment change in the way of thinking to do so. Interestingly enough, the Enlightenment came on the foundation laid by Luther of a mind, being made in God’s image, able to independently draw conclusions, and not being bound to ‘authorities.’

A further factor was the investigative tools became available. This was Marchant’s distinctive for science: it used tools, whereas philosophy did not. Not a bad distinction, IMO.

Then he went on to tell us that science needed to engage the real world, and not just think, but did not refer to the role that Christianity had to play in this, in finally breaking the hold of paganism (not to say that Aristotle didn’t attempt to examine the world around him).

He quickly traced this development through the early modern period of science to conclude with an acceptance that life was available for study, and not untouchable: the world became object and ceased to be ‘transcendent’, which is exactly what we get from Genesis 1-3. The world is created, not creator (ironically, evolutionism takes us back to the pagan view that the world is its own creator and that we are its subjects!)

Marchant also commented that the idea of an ‘ultimate vital substance’ was believed until the 1930s and that it takes some effort of will to reject this notion (that life is special) and accept the reduction to chemistry and physics (which are themselves intellectual constructs of the world…very good ones, obviously, but as many scientists, he failed to understand the metaphysic that his work relies upon).

I was fascinated that Marchant used biblical ideas as touchstones at a number of points in his lecture: he talked about a tension between uniformitarianism and catastrophism, explaining the latter by the examples of the Bible’s creation and Noah’s flood ‘stories’. Predictably, one of the audience gave a knowing chuckle of superiority at this mention. I was pleased that Marchant rose above such crassness.

He also contrasted the age of the earth as given in the Bible ‘as 6000 years found by adding up the ages of the patriarchs in the Bible’. But now we know better…

The effect of accepting long ages, instead of biblical ages, is to remove God from the historical continuity that commences with his direct making of us. The long ages remove God as a credible player in our origin and relegate him to being a-historical, and therefore ‘not in our reality’. The implications of this for the incarnation are pointed.

I think the very purpose of the date markers in the Bible, and the genesian use of time references that make sense in our world-experience are to show the direct connection between God and us; that we are not the products of a universe that made itself (pagan-like). They show by each tangible connection, how we are connected to the will of God, expressing his love in creation. If we tamper with this, we undo important parts of Biblical theology, IMO and change how we think about God, Christ, salvation and ourselves!

No Creator?

This letter to the editor appeared in the latest (Oct 16 2009) North Shore Times:

It seems that at least someone pays attention to church communications, even tho wrong, the conclusion drawn is in line with much current church belief!

Aristotle on origins

I liked this quote from Aristotle on origins. To save a click, here 'tis:

Here and elsewhere, we shall not obtain the best insights into things until we actually
see them growing from the beginning

— Aristotle

Which is the very point, for both salvation history and our understanding of our relationship with God and the cosmos, of Genesis 1, IMO.

Dateable time

In the 'Life of Jesus' video, John Dickson makes the comment that the gospels set Jesus in 'dateable time'. This gives the gospels at least face credibility, because they talk about what happened in a way that we can connect with. We can make the trace between then and now, and clearly thus share the same world as the events of the gospels.

Similarly for the creation. 'Life of Jesus' talks about our creator, but without giving him a concrete real time relationship with us. But the Bible goes to some lengths to put the creation into dateable time. In fact, it is used by some Jews to set their calendar! If the creation didn't occur in dateable time, then God can't really make a claim on being a creator in any real sense, because he can't link his actions with our world, so 'creator' as myth, not as fact, as fairy tale, rather than the event which determines, dominates and defines our existential situation!

The alternative is that in principle it did occur in dateable time, but so very long ago, in a manner we have no access to that we just have to take it on faith. But this is not biblical faith; that rests on real events and real actions.

Contemplating plumbing

While on holidays recently I also read this in the Blue Mountains Gazette for the 7th of October 2009, by Ben Tankard of Blaxland:

The Gazette recently published a short letter from Peter Kidd, in which he extols the virtues of a life with Christ. In the interests of fairness and balance, I have written a short letter to recommend a life of science instead.

Science has a lot going for it. Modern medicine, automobiles, indoor plumbing -- all these were brought to you by men and women using their brains, not by praying but by thinking.

Science is a method of understanding the universe based on observation of real evidence, not wishful thinking. There are not imaginary friends involved.

I would recommend, that if any reader is confused about the world, they should go to their local bookstore or library and delve into the world of science.

Any book will do for starters, but I would mention those by Carl Sagan, Dr. Karl, Michio Kaku, and Oliver Sachs, as they are not just informative, but also highly entertaining. Science has the real aanswers. Happy thinking!

If you want to reply the editor is at the following email.

editorial.bmgazette@ruralpress.com

My own reply is below:

If Mr Tankard wants to spend his life contemplating indoor plumbing, I guess that is his lookout; but science only gets us so far. It is great at its job of helping us understand how the world operates, but it tells us nothing about our relationships with each other and our past. For that you need history; that tells us where we came from and how.

Mr Tankard jibes at the Christian perspective, but it is this that has given us the history that takes us back to our Creator. On this basis we come, not from meaningless matter bumping around in a pond, but the intention of someone who made us purposively: God, of course.

Interestingly it is only on the basis of this Biblical view of creation that modern science has emerged in the first place. Before it observation of the natural world was either mired in myth and superstition, or was simply contemplated as a theoretical curiosity; such as in Ancient Greece, where science was 'still born' and had few practical outcomes.

Thus Christians didn't pray and not observe, but because they prayed, they could observe and draw conclusions not based on wild speculations.

So, Ben, you settle down with your indoor plumbing; I'll sit with the words of our Creator who invites us to a realist understanding of life, the cosmos and relationships within it.

Plutarch: on time

A while ago I put up some blogs on the relationship of time to the creation.

Plutarch has made a similar observation on the importance of that universal limitation on our thought and action: time is, as they say, of the essence!

13: So the buildings arose, as imposing in their sheer size as they were inimitable in the grace of their outlines, since the artists strove to excel themselves in the beauty of their workmanship. And yet the most wonderful thing about them was the speed with which they were completed. Each of them, men supposed, would take many generations to build, but in fact the entire project was carried through in the high summer of one man's administration....It is this, above all, which makes Pericles' works an object of wonder to us -- the fact that they were created in so short a span, and yet for all time.

The point being that mixing process and time says something about the doer: complex process, plus short time = wonder at the outcome. Any process and huge time: not remarkable at all; thus the brief time of God's creating is an important part of the Genesis record, I suggest.

On Connect 09

I've mentioned recently the current Sydney Diocesan program called "Connect 09" which is an attempt to expand the influence of the Anglican church in Sydney, and the number of people attending Anglican services (presumably).

My church has conducted a number of Connect-related attractions, which I would assess as having varing effect. Generally I'm opposed to doing anything by sloganeering; particularly anything to do with what I might call transformative communications.

As an aside, I reflect on my experience working in marketing for a multi-national, selling specialist chemicals. We had a few slogans, which were imposed on us by our UK head office, but they were by the wayside, when it came to our real communications efforts. We pretty much knew who our customers, or potential customers were. Our efforts went into understanding our competitors and why they were attractive, what would lead a customer to use our products, and what their needs and drivers were that would lead them to see our products a benefit. To find out all this, we talked to our customers and live prospects. We did not engage in mass communications at all, but close, detailed, personal and intense communications!

Its simliar with promoting (!) the Christian life. While we would see that all people would benefit from Christian faith, we should be realistic and understand that very few people are at any time in a position to contemplate Christian commitment. We do not 'connect' with such people by mass marketing, low involvement communications efforts; we do so by making real connections over the long term and delivering on the promise of those connections...over the long term.

The stimulus for this blog came from my experience recently while on holidays in the Blue Mountains, to the immediate west of Sydney, and still within the diocese.

The village my family stayed in was having its annual festival which involved private gardens being open to the public (and well worth it) and a market which saw the main shopping street closed to traffic, and filled with high quality market stalls selling goods, art works, food and some 'New Age' promotions for health and 'spiritual' products.

The local Anglican church joined in by holding a flower festival, its auditorium decorated with quite attractive and hard worked at flower displays, with a 'praise festival' in the afternoon, featuring the hymns of Wesley.

We attended the 10am service, which we'd done some years past on a similar holiday. All I can say about the service was 'the flowers were good', if you like that sort of thing, and the (electric organ) music was enjoyable enough; although I'm not a fan of either the electric organ, unless its being played by Jimmy Smith.

The service itself wasn't up to the mark. Now anyone can have a bad day, and I enjoyed the Bible readings and prayer; but the sermon was a meandering and insensitive chat about part of Luke's gospel, without any real acknowledgement of the life-issues that it touched upon and how the word of God could be of benefit to us in our everyday struggles, thoughts and relationships. The minister had a swipe at the great flower display (with a remark about hayfever! Man, that must have encouraged his parishioners) and hashed his way through the prayer book, undoing its benefit of saving the incompetent from themselves, IMO.

We then went to the street market, and it was as if we were on another planet. The disconnect between the church and what was going on a stone's throw away was immense and palpable. Although I do hope that some people ventured in to look at the flowers and came back at 3pm to join in singing Wesley. I venture that few did.

To adopt the word from the slogan, if a church wants to connect with its community, it must, I think, work on a number of levels.

Firstly, it must be known as part of the action of the community. It must have an amount of 'mind share' that will let it contribute to community life. Then it must be actively involved in the community on a number of relevant fronts: finding where there is need and meeting that which it can. Both these aspects of 'contact' are long term and need to be done without rush or panic year in and year out, changing as the community and its needs and interests change. Slogans may work on top of this, but not instead of it. But then, if this is working, slogans are irrelevant, if not offensive (being that they deny the relationships that are built and validated year in and year out).

Then, when things like festivals come along, they get involved. The idea of flowers is OK as far as it goes, but it doesn't go far. Flowers and art? A choral festival, with a 'star' choir featuring at the morning service; a music festival that would be of interest to the community, not necessarily the church family; although some links would be beneficial? But these are only the start of the contact: then start to open the path to gain permission to tell the church's story (that's marketing talk for the message it really wants to give).

What a lot of church contacts miss is that they are only the start of the persons' experience of the church and need to make links to enable those who are interested to travel all the way to discipleship (which should have its own path, much as it did in the ancient church; today, I think, we make discipleship a glib bit if wordsmanship, not a process of learning to live the faith as a disciple of Christ).

As Justin at St Philips said in reflection on the first minister of that parish William Cowper: its about doing a steady job over the long term. There are no valid short term fixes to make up for long term deficits; long term systematic separation from the community you now seek to 'connect' with.

2 books on evolution

I just came across this review on HOPE 103.2, a radion station which features Christian programming. The review is by Kara Martin on two books on origins.

I hope to hear the podcast sometime soon and add to this post my own remarks on the review.

Also noticed this review on Anthony Flew's book on God.

And, while I'm at it, here's a link to a brief discussion on origins and Christian faith.

Ideal church?

On Jordan Cooper's blog, he links to a list of 6 (+2) worst practices in ch meetings (services).

The first thing the list shows me is how culturally bound our views of our community and its meetings are. I disagreed not only with most of the list, but with the premises underlying them (but then, my interests are adult and young children discipling and teaching).

Maybe the list is right and I'm not, but our views of our community life are also very personal!

The item I agree with is having announcements at the commencement of the meeting. How crazy is that? As soon as you arrive, they are talking not about what they are here for, but about other things that you might like to consider. Announcements are definitely part of the denoument, not the introduction or development!

Much of the list seemed to be 'main man minister' orientated, rather than community, or truly 'church' orientated (church as in the NT, not church as derived from Rome), so that's the premise I'd resist.

What would be my list?

Based on my local ch, and therefore entirely my personal thoughts (and probably different from everyone else's, and a survey might show me to be out on a limb):

- two songs at the start: one's enough, two is just tedious, especially when they are lyrically and musically at odds.

- compares (moderators, service conductors) making unhelpful continuity remarks. No one turns up to hear the compare, but expects them to keep the meeting running smoothly and without drawing attention to themselves

- completely ignoring the wonderful Anglican prayer book tradition: the prayer book would save us from people of varying talent 'making it up as they go' and provides a steady structure for those places where innovation is welcome.

- skipping prayer because there's a baptism (infant, not adult); this would be solved at our parish if the following service would agree to commence only 15 minutes later!

- because of the time, always rushing

- conspicuous fussing by musicians at the front, as though its about musicians and not about us teaching one another with spiritual songs (I quote Paul here)

- the ever-present 'PowerPoint' for projecting song lyrics: not that the idea isn't good, but I can't easily look up due to a neck injury (I did say it was a personal list), so, church=have a headache for me.

And what should ch be like?

My ideal would be something like a small conference, with a mix of mingle time, plenary sessions and workshops. I think this model could work for a tiny church or a large one, because what it does is get people together, giving opportunity for conversation, discussion, prayer, support and reflection, with people able to leave or join at a number of points through the program.

So, I'd join two different church models I've known:

Model 1: sunday school for children and adults (discussion group), break for morning tea, 'normal' church meeting.

Model 2: 'normal' church meeting, using Anglican prayer book and old fashioned hymns and choir (v. good), creche operates for young children, morning tea, then prayer meeting, sometimes followed by light lunch (soup, bread rolls, fruit).

Together, I'd propose:

Formal opening, contemplative, prayerful, slow paced (young people might do it differently for pace)

Teaching/encouraging talk (aka sermon, but not a 'sermon')

brief break: people might leave, or join,

Proper morning prayer service, or communion.

morning tea

children's and adults sunday school

prayer meetings, one to one prayer or conversation (structured time, for encouragement, etc, over a cup of tea or not)

light lunch.

The times would be advertised for each segment so people could come or go as they pleased.

Just an indication, not a worked out program!

Plutarch on intelligence in the cosmos

This is one of the first descriptions of intelligence in the cosmos outside the Bible:

Anaxagoras of Clazomenae, was called "intelligence personified. They gave him this name either out of admiration for the extraordinary intellectual powers he displayed in the investigation of natural phenomena, or else because he was the first to dethrone Chance and Necessity and set up pure Intelligence in their place as the first principle of law and order which informs the universe, and which distinguishes from an otherwise chaotic mass those substances which possess elements in common.

Its from Plutarch, in his essay on Pericles (4)

Challenge

I've just looked at the book "Life of Jesus" which offers a 'challenge' after each episode of the video that it accompanies.

Also the other day on 2CBA-FM someone mentioned that part of evangelism is to 'challenge' someone...probably to challenge their beliefs.

Now, I don't know about you, but I wouldn't really feel any desire to 'rise' to someone's challenge which clearly seeks to favour their point of view over mine. I just wouldn't bother. It's an obnoxious, pugnatious way of regarding people, IMO. Far better to seek to relate to people, offer something to think about, or to discuss what made you think about faith and life...'challenge' see any marketers using that word to try to change your self-belief? I don't think so.

It suggest to me a sense of panic in those who use it...but don't panic, just get on with cultivating your life of following Jesus, bearing the fruit of the spirit, and seeking to serve and not be served.

Terms of engagement

Further to my previous post on this article, the post on Euangelion on creation, and thinking about this, occurs to me that in Gen 1. Gd sets out what creation is, in his terms: that is, he's the author, he knows what he did and what is important to inform our thinking and understanding about what he did; giving us a basis for informed (a) covenant life, (b) action in the creation, as its stewards, and (c) as part of (a) who we are before Gd and in creation.

If someone wants to use other terms, one has to question their basis in knowledge (true justified knowledge, and not the knowledge that seems to pop out of our cultural framework), their effect on our understanding of Gd and us (points a-c above) and their effect on who Gd is contra his self-representation. So it's man saying that Gd is not self-representing as creator in his terms, but we prefer out terms to define who Gd is as creator and we as creatures. Hidebound arrogance, to my mind, and philosophically and theologically unsound, undoing the stream of history that describes Gd's salvific basis, intent and achievement.

Bonhoeffer on Genesis 1.1 – “And God said…”

Yet another wonderful post on Der Evangelische Theologe:

And I quote the post in full:

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Creation and Fall: A Theological Exposition of Genesis 1-3 (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2004): 40-1:
“[T]he God of the Bible remains wholly God, wholly the Creator, wholly the Lord, and what God has created remains wholly subject and obedient, praising and worshiping God as Lord. God is never the creation but always the Creator. God is not the substance of nature. There is no continuum that ties God to, or unites God with, God’s work – except God’s word…That is, ‘inherently’ [‘an sich’] there is no continuum; were the word not there, the world would drop into a bottomless abyss. This word of God is neither the nature nor the essence of God; it is the commandment of God. It is the very God who thinks and creates this word, but as One who chooses to encounter the creature as its Creator. God’s creatorship is not the essence, the substance, but the will or commandment of God; in it God gives us God’s very self as God wills. That God creates by the word means that creation is God’s order or command, and that this command is free.

“God says, God speaks. This means that God creates in complete freedom. Even in creating, God remains wholly free over against what is created. God is not bound to what is created; instead God binds it to God. God does not enter into what is created as its substance; instead what relates God to what is created is God’s command. That is, God is never in the world in any other way than as one who is utterly beyond it. God is, as the word, in the world, because God is the one who is utterly beyond, and God is utterly beyond the world, because God is in the world in the word. Only in the word of creation do we know the Creator; only in the word addressed to us in the middle do we have the beginning. It is not ‘from’ God’s works, then, that we recognize the Creator – as though the substance, the nature, or the essence of the work were after all ultimately somehow identical with God’s essence or as if there were some kind of continuum between them, such as that of cause and effect. On the contrary we believe that God is the Creator only because by his word God acknowledges these works as his own, and we believe this word about these works. There is no via eminentiae, negationis, causalitatis!”