"The empirical observation that nature has, over three billion years, developed survival strategies..." (Pich, et al, "On Uncertainty, Ambiguity, and Complexity in Project Management" Management Science v. 48, n. 8 Aug 2002 pp 1008-1023).
This is, of course, the mainstream view. But there is no 'empirical observation' about nature developing survival strategies, let alone over 'three billion years'. This is merely a statement that assumes the truth of the rhetoric of evolution. But, to be fair, this is the sort of thing that one reads in even biological literature, where what is imagined, hoped, supposed, surmised or simply fabricated is considered to be empirically established because all alternative explanations are ruled out axiomatically. Rationally, how could anyone 'observe' something that supposedly took three billion years, when even R. Dawkins stated that one couldn't see evolution happening, becuase it is too slow. Stephen Gould on the other hand considered that we couldn't see it happening because it was too fast!
Just recently, this blog on a critical view of evolution came to my notice.
And, speaking of empirical, just what do we see?
Genes are produced by adult organisms;
Offspring are very similar to parents;
Genes don't change very much, and what variability we do know about seems to be strictly confined to the level of genus or family (see the finches that got Darwin so worked up: still finches).
29 January 2010
26 January 2010
Evil and its problems
This was recently left as a comment. I haven't let the comment through, but :
http://aristophrenium.com/?p=
The author's comment is:
The commenter made the comment:
I reply:
The problem is in the construction of the assertion. They set up a 'god' to fail (the almost ever-present but non-existent 'god' of the philosophers). The Creator God is not fully described in relationship to his creation as per the first element of the syllogism. As you say, it ignores the fall, the doctrine of creation where we are the stewards of the created order ( and therefore responsible). He has done something about it.
Without adopting a calvinist definition, I prefer to adopt a more biblical description of God as being sovereign: this in relation to the creation, of course, but 'soverign' is a relational term, and starts to open the discussion as to what this entails, whereas technical terms such as the 'omni's' seem to ignore the system of relationships which God has entered by his creation, modified by the fall (where his life giving ness was rejected), and changed again in redemption.
Why do Christians keep accepting their opponent's definitions, instead of rejecting them from the outset as unbiblical and thus just 'made up'?
http://aristophrenium.com/?p=
The problem is simple: If God is all-powerful, loving and good, that means he can do what he wants and will do what is morally right. But surely this means that he would not allow an innocent child to suffer needlessly (as he could easily prevent it). Yet he does. Much infant suffering is the result of human action, but much is also due to natural causes such as disease, flood or famine. In both cases, God could stop it. Yet he does not.
The author's comment is:
It is sheer irony that TPM would be found committing such a basic question-begging fallacy. In reality there is no tension at all between my answers. Notwithstanding my agreement that there exists a God with the above described attributes, I had agreed that it is morally reprehensible to “allow an innocent child to suffer needlessly when one could easily prevent it.” Notice that emphasized word, for it is critically important. If there exists a God who is omnipotent, omniscient, and benevolent then there cannot exist gratuitous evil or suffering, for the two are mutually exclusive in the same way that an Irresistible Force and an Immovable Object are. One can posit that my two answers are incompatible only by begging the question (fallacy) that some humans suffer needlessly; to assert that gratuitous evil or suffering exists shoulders an enormous burden of proof in a critical evaluation of the God of Christianity.
The commenter made the comment:
It's the omni-point and gratituous evil stuff that is sick. Ryft forgets there is a fall and thus there is gratuitous evil. His convenient enthymematic premiss is that God ordained the fall, an admission which would have atheists rejecting Christianity outright.
I reply:
The problem is in the construction of the assertion. They set up a 'god' to fail (the almost ever-present but non-existent 'god' of the philosophers). The Creator God is not fully described in relationship to his creation as per the first element of the syllogism. As you say, it ignores the fall, the doctrine of creation where we are the stewards of the created order ( and therefore responsible). He has done something about it.
Without adopting a calvinist definition, I prefer to adopt a more biblical description of God as being sovereign: this in relation to the creation, of course, but 'soverign' is a relational term, and starts to open the discussion as to what this entails, whereas technical terms such as the 'omni's' seem to ignore the system of relationships which God has entered by his creation, modified by the fall (where his life giving ness was rejected), and changed again in redemption.
Why do Christians keep accepting their opponent's definitions, instead of rejecting them from the outset as unbiblical and thus just 'made up'?
15 January 2010
Pastor-Theologian
My comment on a blog on pastor-as-theologian at Euangelion:
It is almost inevitable that a pastor is a theologian, else with what is he or she pastoring? Applying the word of God to the growth or encouragement of another Christian involves engaging with that Word, does it not? Or have we entered the conceit of the world that some 'do God' better than others, and that because of specific studies? Not to confuse being a theologian with being someone whose job is to research, teach or publish about theology, or who is a paid Christian in a church...anyone can enter into a pastoring role by the circumstances my opening suggests.
I was a little concerned at some posts that seem to lock either pastoring or theologizing into formal jobs, or even a pastor being part of a therapeutic dyad...heaven forbid! It seems to me that there is or should be a relational dynamism in churches that would step beyond job titles to actual encounters of people with each other: in home Bible study/prayer groups, in formal 'classes', in the bus...whereever. It's what happens, not by whom it happens that sets the scene, I think...meaning we could all at times be pastor-theologians!
It is almost inevitable that a pastor is a theologian, else with what is he or she pastoring? Applying the word of God to the growth or encouragement of another Christian involves engaging with that Word, does it not? Or have we entered the conceit of the world that some 'do God' better than others, and that because of specific studies? Not to confuse being a theologian with being someone whose job is to research, teach or publish about theology, or who is a paid Christian in a church...anyone can enter into a pastoring role by the circumstances my opening suggests.
I was a little concerned at some posts that seem to lock either pastoring or theologizing into formal jobs, or even a pastor being part of a therapeutic dyad...heaven forbid! It seems to me that there is or should be a relational dynamism in churches that would step beyond job titles to actual encounters of people with each other: in home Bible study/prayer groups, in formal 'classes', in the bus...whereever. It's what happens, not by whom it happens that sets the scene, I think...meaning we could all at times be pastor-theologians!
9 January 2010
Leading to where?
Listening to 2CBAFM aka Hope-FM recently, I heard mention of a course at Tabor College on pastoral leadership… and a few days ago I read in Mintzberg’s latest book Managing the following:
Now I’ve blogged before, critically, on the penchant in contemporary church circles to talk ad nauseum about ‘leadership’ and bemoan the passing of the counterpoint concentration in decades past on ‘ministry’. The latter more biblical in every way than the former: the latter being about serving and building cooperating mutually serving communities abounding in the giving of the gifts of the Spirit; the former being about the promotion of the select few over and above the rest of the church, they reduced to a passivity that itself is unbiblical and in denial of the work of the Spirit in building the church. The former is about a supernaturally derived body, the latter is about a lifeless worldly organization that seeks to substitute mechanism, technique and ‘methodology’ to use that strange word, for the movement of God’s Spirit in people.
I reflect on two things coming out of this:
1. The church’s uncritical aping the world without being able to stand informed intellectually by the scriptures and say ‘no, we do things differently to the world’s organizations, because we are a people called by God to live together in service and love’. We look for different things, we seek to build up one another, not promote the few, we seek to live as a family of love, not as a business where we clock off at 5pm and look to 'leaders' because we don't know where to go'.
Alas, the church has said nothing of the kind, but instead wants to squander its heritage, and its Lord’s teaching in such crude and nonsensical ideas as ‘pastoral leadership’. Why not ‘pastoring’ or ‘pastoral care’ or ‘personal ministry’ as course titles? What does a ‘pastoral leader’ do, anyway? Where do they lead, and how do they get followers? By dying on a cross? That’s where the church’s leader got his followers!
Of course not, the whole idea is silly. There is no such thing as ‘pastoral leadership’, relying as it does on the counter-biblical passivity of those ministered to as though a psychotherapeutic dyad comes into existence at each pastoral encounter, instead of the mutually committed support given to each other in Christ.
I’m saddened that I’m not aware of any Christian thinker who has made the argument about church life that Mintzberg makes about worldly organizations!
2. Christian organizations seem to bolt head over heels to adopt the titles and structures of worldly organizations. We have ‘CEOs’, Directors, General Managers, State/Area/Regional Managers, and so on. Why don’t we have such humble descriptive titles of functions as ‘coordinator’, ‘organiser’, ‘planner’, ‘secretary’, ‘convenor’, ‘teacher’, ‘facilitator’, ‘helper’, ‘worker’, ‘servant’ 'steward', and ‘minister’? Even ‘elder’ and ‘deacon’ have a good biblical track record for the right circumstances! As I’ve also said before, we even ape the world at the level of Sunday school (now with cute names such as ‘Kid’s Church’, or Sunday Club) and our children have ‘leaders’ not ‘teachers’. Is this not the first step in showing them that the world sets the pace, not the word of God; that we seek to build a structure and not live out the calling of the Kingdom of God?
In a way, I admire the trade union movement that my father was involved in. They eschewed the terminology of big business, and indeed adopted church terms at some levels, being organised into ‘chapels’ with the main worker in each ‘chapel’ being the ‘father’. But they had delegates, organisers and convenors. They had the focus of their convictions to make a new world for workers unlike the one they experienced. It is sad that the church, Christian organizations, seem to lack similar courage or insight and ape the world that it says it rejects! Naturally our witness falls flat because our actions say ‘we want to be just like you, not show a radically different way that is the calling of our Lord’.
…by putting leadership on a pedestal separated from management, we turn a social process into a personal one. No matter how much lip service is paid to the leader empowering the group, leadership still focuses on the individual: whenever we promote leadership, we demote others, as followers. Slighted, too is the sense of community that is important for cooperative effort in all organizations. What we should be promoting instead of leadership alone are communities of actors who get on with things naturally, leadership together with management being an intrinsic part of that. Accordingly this book puts managing ahead, seeing it together with leadership as naturally embedded in what can be called ‘communityship’.
Now I’ve blogged before, critically, on the penchant in contemporary church circles to talk ad nauseum about ‘leadership’ and bemoan the passing of the counterpoint concentration in decades past on ‘ministry’. The latter more biblical in every way than the former: the latter being about serving and building cooperating mutually serving communities abounding in the giving of the gifts of the Spirit; the former being about the promotion of the select few over and above the rest of the church, they reduced to a passivity that itself is unbiblical and in denial of the work of the Spirit in building the church. The former is about a supernaturally derived body, the latter is about a lifeless worldly organization that seeks to substitute mechanism, technique and ‘methodology’ to use that strange word, for the movement of God’s Spirit in people.
I reflect on two things coming out of this:
1. The church’s uncritical aping the world without being able to stand informed intellectually by the scriptures and say ‘no, we do things differently to the world’s organizations, because we are a people called by God to live together in service and love’. We look for different things, we seek to build up one another, not promote the few, we seek to live as a family of love, not as a business where we clock off at 5pm and look to 'leaders' because we don't know where to go'.
Alas, the church has said nothing of the kind, but instead wants to squander its heritage, and its Lord’s teaching in such crude and nonsensical ideas as ‘pastoral leadership’. Why not ‘pastoring’ or ‘pastoral care’ or ‘personal ministry’ as course titles? What does a ‘pastoral leader’ do, anyway? Where do they lead, and how do they get followers? By dying on a cross? That’s where the church’s leader got his followers!
Of course not, the whole idea is silly. There is no such thing as ‘pastoral leadership’, relying as it does on the counter-biblical passivity of those ministered to as though a psychotherapeutic dyad comes into existence at each pastoral encounter, instead of the mutually committed support given to each other in Christ.
I’m saddened that I’m not aware of any Christian thinker who has made the argument about church life that Mintzberg makes about worldly organizations!
2. Christian organizations seem to bolt head over heels to adopt the titles and structures of worldly organizations. We have ‘CEOs’, Directors, General Managers, State/Area/Regional Managers, and so on. Why don’t we have such humble descriptive titles of functions as ‘coordinator’, ‘organiser’, ‘planner’, ‘secretary’, ‘convenor’, ‘teacher’, ‘facilitator’, ‘helper’, ‘worker’, ‘servant’ 'steward', and ‘minister’? Even ‘elder’ and ‘deacon’ have a good biblical track record for the right circumstances! As I’ve also said before, we even ape the world at the level of Sunday school (now with cute names such as ‘Kid’s Church’, or Sunday Club) and our children have ‘leaders’ not ‘teachers’. Is this not the first step in showing them that the world sets the pace, not the word of God; that we seek to build a structure and not live out the calling of the Kingdom of God?
In a way, I admire the trade union movement that my father was involved in. They eschewed the terminology of big business, and indeed adopted church terms at some levels, being organised into ‘chapels’ with the main worker in each ‘chapel’ being the ‘father’. But they had delegates, organisers and convenors. They had the focus of their convictions to make a new world for workers unlike the one they experienced. It is sad that the church, Christian organizations, seem to lack similar courage or insight and ape the world that it says it rejects! Naturally our witness falls flat because our actions say ‘we want to be just like you, not show a radically different way that is the calling of our Lord’.
6 January 2010
Cathedral: the opportunity
In my previous post on an experience at St. Andrew's Cathedral in Sydney, I discussed what had happened.
Further thoughts on possible opportunities:
I've had the occasion to visit a number of cathedrals in Europe and North America (and parts of Asia, come to think of it), and at all, particularly those in the UK, I have pondered on the great ministry centre a cathedral might be.
Most of the cathedrals I've visited have been of a more liberal theological persuasion, and so seemed to exist for the aesthetic of the place, almost. The opportunities for ministry have not been obviously taken.
In Sydney I think we are heading in a different direction, but in stepping towards the cathedral as a ministry centre, we've also lost some richness in seemingly restricting ministry to an almost reflexive evangelical verbalism, missing out on wider opportunities to the poor, the not poor but spiritually needy, to workers and business people, as well as city residents.
I'm all for efforts like the city ministry school (apart from teaching people to 'lead' instead of perhaps, convene or serve Bible study groups: more biblical usages, in my view) and overcomers outreach (although I do wonder if it is really 'overcomers indrag': outreach services I've been involved with professionally, whether in marketing, human services or education have gone to where the client is, both physically and culturally; churches tend to think that tricking people to come to the building is 'outreach'; its not!), Bible study groups themselves, and the corporate meetings and the like. But I think there is far more that will meet people's more immediate felt needs as a path to showing them Christ.
One symbolic step back has been to shift the front door of the cathedral to the more architecturally and liturgically correct western end. Great, but why not put ministry first: the door facing the east, opening onto the city's main street made the cathedral far more inviting and accessible. Now it just looks like the assembly hall of the cathedral school!
Further thoughts on possible opportunities:
I've had the occasion to visit a number of cathedrals in Europe and North America (and parts of Asia, come to think of it), and at all, particularly those in the UK, I have pondered on the great ministry centre a cathedral might be.
Most of the cathedrals I've visited have been of a more liberal theological persuasion, and so seemed to exist for the aesthetic of the place, almost. The opportunities for ministry have not been obviously taken.
In Sydney I think we are heading in a different direction, but in stepping towards the cathedral as a ministry centre, we've also lost some richness in seemingly restricting ministry to an almost reflexive evangelical verbalism, missing out on wider opportunities to the poor, the not poor but spiritually needy, to workers and business people, as well as city residents.
I'm all for efforts like the city ministry school (apart from teaching people to 'lead' instead of perhaps, convene or serve Bible study groups: more biblical usages, in my view) and overcomers outreach (although I do wonder if it is really 'overcomers indrag': outreach services I've been involved with professionally, whether in marketing, human services or education have gone to where the client is, both physically and culturally; churches tend to think that tricking people to come to the building is 'outreach'; its not!), Bible study groups themselves, and the corporate meetings and the like. But I think there is far more that will meet people's more immediate felt needs as a path to showing them Christ.
One symbolic step back has been to shift the front door of the cathedral to the more architecturally and liturgically correct western end. Great, but why not put ministry first: the door facing the east, opening onto the city's main street made the cathedral far more inviting and accessible. Now it just looks like the assembly hall of the cathedral school!
3 January 2010
True Spirituality
I'm re-reading Schaeffer's book of the name of this post. Third time, I think, and worthwhile.
I like the way he addresses the pivot of Christian spirituality being in our inward movement, naturally, away from godliness, and Christ's turning of that.
But then I think of typical evangelicalism, where spirituality gets short shrift, as though the entirety of Christian life and experience is in the new birth. This touches on the earlier series of posts on sermons: do they help us, encourage us to live as though not of this world? as though thinking in a renewed manner about everything that can be thought about? do they point us to live as those who will live forever, and make decisions, adopt attitudes and join relationships with that as our theme: to be able to sacrifice, forgive, love and extend to others?
These are all places I am exposed in...but there seems to be a poverty of thought in these places to aid the Christian walk.
I like the way he addresses the pivot of Christian spirituality being in our inward movement, naturally, away from godliness, and Christ's turning of that.
But then I think of typical evangelicalism, where spirituality gets short shrift, as though the entirety of Christian life and experience is in the new birth. This touches on the earlier series of posts on sermons: do they help us, encourage us to live as though not of this world? as though thinking in a renewed manner about everything that can be thought about? do they point us to live as those who will live forever, and make decisions, adopt attitudes and join relationships with that as our theme: to be able to sacrifice, forgive, love and extend to others?
These are all places I am exposed in...but there seems to be a poverty of thought in these places to aid the Christian walk.
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