28 June 2010
24 June 2010
Eternity...idiots?
In a recent edition of a local Christian newspaper "Eternity" an article appeared authored by Greg Clarke, a worker at the Centre for Public Christianity. He made the somewhat undergraduate claim that Christians who take the opening chapter of the Bible at face value are, somehow 'idiots'.
I wrote to Clarke as follows:
I was in many ways pleased to see your recent article in Eternity. I was particularly encouraged having heard you speak at the Centre for Public Christianity supporters’ lunch a couple of months ago at the Wesley Centre in Sydney.
However, as I read the article, I became concerned at the pejorative language attached to an historic Christian position held with respect to our understanding of the opening chapters of the Bible.
I must say, I was surprised, no, disappointed, in the use of the term ‘idiot’ to apply to some of the greatest names in church history, many respected Christian people and, to an extent, to myself as well. It reminds me of a similar lapse many years ago when Archbishop Jensen, who was then principal of Moore College and had been a regular preacher at my church, lampooned the historic Christian doctrine of creation as being a ‘hill billy’ view!
It seemed that his, and perhaps your, preferred take on the scriptures was to set them aside in deference to the world view which starts with the axiom that there is no God, and if there might be, he certainly hasn’t spoken meaningfully to us in terms congruent with the world we are in (yet how contrary this is to the import of Genesis 1). This aligns with the deist roots of modern views of cosmogony and Earth history that makes of God a mere cipher with no real connection with either the material cosmos or ourselves.
The irony in your declaration that people who accept the Bible’s account of creation at face value are ‘head in the sand idiots’ is its similarity to the more vehement declarations Richard Dawkins makes about Christians in general! His point is that any insertion of the supernatural into the evolutionary scheme is a sign of insanity. It was amusing to hear him on ABC TV’s Q&A program stating his view that he doesn’t mind if church worthies accept evolution alongside the Bible, because he saw such acceptance as the death knell of religious views. Why should he worry, he’s won!
Irony aside, the repugnance of your claim is the implications it has for the believer’s humility before the revelation of God, the preconceptions that constrain your particular hermeneutic, and the general failure to engage with conservative scholarship, let alone scientific criticism of the very old pagan view that the world, the ‘real’ world, really made itself over vast amounts of time, and we merely ‘clip on’ God, as a fiction, as most materialists see it: not as the credible creator who started it all.
I know that your colleague John Dixon is of the view that Genesis 1 has a literary structure that precludes it being an account of actual events, yet his case is not made, in my view, and he appears to simply trot out ideas that E J Young, as an example, had discussed and rebutted in the early 1960s. So, nothing new under the sun! Dixon does venture further into some more complex literary considerations, with his reference to the chiastic structure of Genesis 1, but he fails to indicate how this necessarily precludes the text being an account of events, given the ubiquity of the structure in the Bible and in ancient literature.
But it is at the point of ‘realism’ that I think your claim hits a snag. The view you appear to extol seems to me to have more in common with the anti-realist views of broadly conceived paganism and its contemporary dress-up, philosophical idealism. This set of views is perfectly happy with the Bible being regarded as conveying information by not conveying information, in some incoherent twist of logic, while pretending to adopt the realist stance of the Bible: that things can be as stated, and the world came from God’s hand as a unitary creation. That is, we think, understand and live in the world as a consistent whole, including the illumination of that world from the word of God, when it in fact rejects any realist stance and makes the Bible discontinuous with the world that it claims God made for encounter between him and us!
At bottom, you seem to be more impressed by contemporary materialism, its acolytes and deep cultural assent, and align yourself with a non-believers’ critique of the Bible. This alignment has never produced a change in materialists, but paves the road to disbelief by saying that God has nothing to do with this world, it just is.
I wrote to Clarke as follows:
I was in many ways pleased to see your recent article in Eternity. I was particularly encouraged having heard you speak at the Centre for Public Christianity supporters’ lunch a couple of months ago at the Wesley Centre in Sydney.
However, as I read the article, I became concerned at the pejorative language attached to an historic Christian position held with respect to our understanding of the opening chapters of the Bible.
I must say, I was surprised, no, disappointed, in the use of the term ‘idiot’ to apply to some of the greatest names in church history, many respected Christian people and, to an extent, to myself as well. It reminds me of a similar lapse many years ago when Archbishop Jensen, who was then principal of Moore College and had been a regular preacher at my church, lampooned the historic Christian doctrine of creation as being a ‘hill billy’ view!
It seemed that his, and perhaps your, preferred take on the scriptures was to set them aside in deference to the world view which starts with the axiom that there is no God, and if there might be, he certainly hasn’t spoken meaningfully to us in terms congruent with the world we are in (yet how contrary this is to the import of Genesis 1). This aligns with the deist roots of modern views of cosmogony and Earth history that makes of God a mere cipher with no real connection with either the material cosmos or ourselves.
The irony in your declaration that people who accept the Bible’s account of creation at face value are ‘head in the sand idiots’ is its similarity to the more vehement declarations Richard Dawkins makes about Christians in general! His point is that any insertion of the supernatural into the evolutionary scheme is a sign of insanity. It was amusing to hear him on ABC TV’s Q&A program stating his view that he doesn’t mind if church worthies accept evolution alongside the Bible, because he saw such acceptance as the death knell of religious views. Why should he worry, he’s won!
Irony aside, the repugnance of your claim is the implications it has for the believer’s humility before the revelation of God, the preconceptions that constrain your particular hermeneutic, and the general failure to engage with conservative scholarship, let alone scientific criticism of the very old pagan view that the world, the ‘real’ world, really made itself over vast amounts of time, and we merely ‘clip on’ God, as a fiction, as most materialists see it: not as the credible creator who started it all.
I know that your colleague John Dixon is of the view that Genesis 1 has a literary structure that precludes it being an account of actual events, yet his case is not made, in my view, and he appears to simply trot out ideas that E J Young, as an example, had discussed and rebutted in the early 1960s. So, nothing new under the sun! Dixon does venture further into some more complex literary considerations, with his reference to the chiastic structure of Genesis 1, but he fails to indicate how this necessarily precludes the text being an account of events, given the ubiquity of the structure in the Bible and in ancient literature.
But it is at the point of ‘realism’ that I think your claim hits a snag. The view you appear to extol seems to me to have more in common with the anti-realist views of broadly conceived paganism and its contemporary dress-up, philosophical idealism. This set of views is perfectly happy with the Bible being regarded as conveying information by not conveying information, in some incoherent twist of logic, while pretending to adopt the realist stance of the Bible: that things can be as stated, and the world came from God’s hand as a unitary creation. That is, we think, understand and live in the world as a consistent whole, including the illumination of that world from the word of God, when it in fact rejects any realist stance and makes the Bible discontinuous with the world that it claims God made for encounter between him and us!
At bottom, you seem to be more impressed by contemporary materialism, its acolytes and deep cultural assent, and align yourself with a non-believers’ critique of the Bible. This alignment has never produced a change in materialists, but paves the road to disbelief by saying that God has nothing to do with this world, it just is.
20 June 2010
Eliade 3
Interesting thoughts about Abraham's obedience to God in preparing to sacrifice Isaac:
and over the page:
and from the introduction:
and over the page:
and from the introduction:
16 June 2010
13 June 2010
Eliade
I've just completed reading Mircea Eliade's Myth of Eternal Return, and while in parts somewhat testing (i.e. dull), in other parts very illuminating on the operation of the concept of time in religious and ontological contexts. I'll post pieces I've found particularly interesting from a Christian perspective.
The first is below.
Against what I realise is some contemporary scholarship, which attempts to reabsorb the creation account in Genesis 1 into an ANE mythic background, Eliade identifies is as going in the very opposite direction!
The first is below.
Against what I realise is some contemporary scholarship, which attempts to reabsorb the creation account in Genesis 1 into an ANE mythic background, Eliade identifies is as going in the very opposite direction!
6 June 2010
Shepherd
It is well known that David was, prior to his prominence in the Bible, was a shepherd: in 1 Chronicles 17:7, it says this of him:
Interesting to note that a shepherd...a pastor? doesn't lead, but follows the flock! Also that the passage distinguishes that role from that of 'leader'.
I wonder if this might throw light today on the prediliction we have in modern western churches to refer to a model of community life that is predicated upon the exclusivity and individualisating notion of leadership.
Leadership may work in authority or information relationships, such as the armed forces, or in the quasi legal relationships of business or government; but I don't think it is congenial with how the scriptures, particularly the NT describes the life of the church. Certainly we have apostles, prophets, teachers, etc. But essentially all relationships within the body of Christ are characterised as serving, ministry, relationships, not leading/boss/political relationships, essentially.
Yet we allow ourselves to be led down the path of the world, which loves specialness, celebrity, power and prestige, and have 'leaders' and CEOs (of christian organisations...why not coordinators, organisers, even just ministers or servants?).
This comes to me every so often in the context of 'leading' a service, or a small study group. But I've never 'led' them, I hope I've always served! So a small group servant/minister? Or at most convenor or moderator?
I've learnt of a recent World Vision leadership convention for young people. Surely we want young people, particularly young christians to learn to be humble servants, not court the prominence of 'leadership'. Christ had some hard words to say about 'leaders'. I would suspect that we should try not to be such, but seek opportunities to serve, and encourage, which I think the word and the contemporary context of 'leader' mitigates against.
Now, therefore, thus shall you say to My servant David, 'Thus says the LORD of hosts, "I took you from the pasture, from following the sheep, to be leader over My people Israel.
Interesting to note that a shepherd...a pastor? doesn't lead, but follows the flock! Also that the passage distinguishes that role from that of 'leader'.
I wonder if this might throw light today on the prediliction we have in modern western churches to refer to a model of community life that is predicated upon the exclusivity and individualisating notion of leadership.
Leadership may work in authority or information relationships, such as the armed forces, or in the quasi legal relationships of business or government; but I don't think it is congenial with how the scriptures, particularly the NT describes the life of the church. Certainly we have apostles, prophets, teachers, etc. But essentially all relationships within the body of Christ are characterised as serving, ministry, relationships, not leading/boss/political relationships, essentially.
Yet we allow ourselves to be led down the path of the world, which loves specialness, celebrity, power and prestige, and have 'leaders' and CEOs (of christian organisations...why not coordinators, organisers, even just ministers or servants?).
This comes to me every so often in the context of 'leading' a service, or a small study group. But I've never 'led' them, I hope I've always served! So a small group servant/minister? Or at most convenor or moderator?
I've learnt of a recent World Vision leadership convention for young people. Surely we want young people, particularly young christians to learn to be humble servants, not court the prominence of 'leadership'. Christ had some hard words to say about 'leaders'. I would suspect that we should try not to be such, but seek opportunities to serve, and encourage, which I think the word and the contemporary context of 'leader' mitigates against.
2 June 2010
On Ethics: the NSW Education Program
The recent debate about teaching ‘ethics’ instead of ‘special religious education’ in public schools has been an opportunity for public Christians to proclaim the gospel. Unfortunately, the opportunity has been neglected!
Much of the debate has let people think that Christian faith is about ethics, when it is very much not so. One looks to Christians to behave ethically, because they have a different take on life to those who think it all ends here (quoting a lyric by Bruce Cockburn), but Christian faith is not so. If anything, it is about the failure of ethics to produce ethical behaviour (think of Paul in Romans 7).
My line of criticism of the ethics courses would be in reference to ethical failure: how are people to make sense of their actions when they fail to live up to their own standards; and whence forgiveness, which is the very point of Christian faith?
The whole area of moral epistemology was also ripe for attack, but was not taken up, so the Anglican church in particular just looked like it was blustering about a ‘lost’ monopoly and probably failed to influence anyone, or attract interest with its sage and compassionate grasp of the underlying issues.
In connection with this matter, a few letters to the press from parents of children in scripture classes have been unhappy with the curriculum. One example was a young child who came home questioning if her parents would ‘go to hell’. If a curriculum or SRE teacher was so blunt with a young child, I’d want to avoid it too. When dealing with ‘heaven and hell’ with children, a better approach is along the lines of explaining that God’s friends will live with God forever, and anyone can be God’s friend by believing him.
A child then asks: “what about people who aren’t God’s friends?” The answer could be “if people aren’t God’s friends, why would they want to be with him? But, they might become God’s friends later.”
Much of the debate has let people think that Christian faith is about ethics, when it is very much not so. One looks to Christians to behave ethically, because they have a different take on life to those who think it all ends here (quoting a lyric by Bruce Cockburn), but Christian faith is not so. If anything, it is about the failure of ethics to produce ethical behaviour (think of Paul in Romans 7).
My line of criticism of the ethics courses would be in reference to ethical failure: how are people to make sense of their actions when they fail to live up to their own standards; and whence forgiveness, which is the very point of Christian faith?
The whole area of moral epistemology was also ripe for attack, but was not taken up, so the Anglican church in particular just looked like it was blustering about a ‘lost’ monopoly and probably failed to influence anyone, or attract interest with its sage and compassionate grasp of the underlying issues.
In connection with this matter, a few letters to the press from parents of children in scripture classes have been unhappy with the curriculum. One example was a young child who came home questioning if her parents would ‘go to hell’. If a curriculum or SRE teacher was so blunt with a young child, I’d want to avoid it too. When dealing with ‘heaven and hell’ with children, a better approach is along the lines of explaining that God’s friends will live with God forever, and anyone can be God’s friend by believing him.
A child then asks: “what about people who aren’t God’s friends?” The answer could be “if people aren’t God’s friends, why would they want to be with him? But, they might become God’s friends later.”
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