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.
30 November 2009
23 November 2009
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.
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.
21 November 2009
1 World Story, or 2?
At St. Philip's last Thursday (19 Nov 09) I unfortunately missed the talk. Here's the promo:
" 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.
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:
Here's a taste of what Andrew will be challenging us with today:
(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.
17 November 2009
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.
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.
15 November 2009
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!
12 November 2009
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.
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.
10 November 2009
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?
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?
8 November 2009
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.
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!
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!
6 November 2009
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!
>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!
5 November 2009
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.
‘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.
1 November 2009
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.
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.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)