What's wrong with Christianity

Greg Clarke from the Centre for Public Christianity spoke at a recent meeting at St Philip's York St. His topic was along the lines of why Christianity makes such little headway these days.

I offered to him the following thoughts:

1. Recently I heard a sermon from the archbishop of Sydney, Peter Jensen who mentioned along the way the 'cringe' that many Christians feel when a 'public' Christian speaks on the live media (TV, radio). He thought the cringe might be because they would talk about the gospel; but in my case the cringe, which does occur, is because they reduce Christian faith to some naff disconnected credal statement, cute moralism or unsubstantiated rhetoric. Rarely do I hear an intellectually strong case made that properly foots the gospel in terms that would make sense to the audience. Nothing of the existential calibre of Paul's Mars Hill address.

So the irreligious have Richard Dawkins as their poster boy, with the Christian faith seen (for those who saw the ABC's Q&A a couple of weeks ago) as given voice by Senator Fielding, who was clearly caught off guard (more discussion on Senator Fielding on Q&A here) but there seems to be little public Christian discussion that would confront the 'way we are' in the popular mind with the gospel.
Indeed, not only does most Christian media discourse fail in this regard; that is, it either underplays the gospel, or assumes a dumber than average audience, but it also tends to be accepting of the way people frame the world: that is generally materialist/naturalist, so they hear the discourse as cast within their own world-concept (and reject it) and not as a viable or cogent challenge to it.

2. The formal connection we attempt to make with people (I mean in public proclamation) in many cases also seemingly plays below people's mental capability and human dignity: disengaged (that is, not answering the question 'how is this going to connect with my life concerns?'), but also dumb (and sometimes failing to recognise that lots of people have a level of spiritual interest, if not Christian).
I note in the NRSV that Paul is often stated as 'arguing' with people about the faith. I take this as not an angry fight, but as a discussion (engaged, involved, attentive, responsive) about reasons for belief. In our proclamation we rarely do this, in my experience; so people remain uninvolved in the discourse...and as McLuhan has said, the message given by our medium is 'be uninvolved' (I think of sermons and other one way communication particularly).

3. The final element that sprang to mind was relevance. Some years ago a person I know was faced with very pointed family distress. He attended church (with his family) and the sermons went on airily attempting to expound the Bible, but nothing seemed to be in touch with his world (that is, again, disconnected from people's life interests or needs): there was no opportunity for prayerful support, or indeed prayer itself, as the church servants (ministers) were intent on moving the congregation out for the next service to start. Then the only thing was the morning tea, where people tended to triumph their successes rather than being available for confidential intimacy and prayerful support for each other. It took me some effort to encourage this person to keep attending, but it was touch and go. He almost become one of the many Christians who refuse to attend church meetings.

4. I wonder if our induction of people into Christian faith could also be a factor. A simple intro to the faith says 'this is simple'. No challenge made means no challenge available, or worthy of a novice.

My impression of the induction of new disciples is that we go lightly instead of equating our action with the seriousness of Christian faith and inviting people to its riches.

Now, I've got no idea of what might be done generally, or what the span of practices is, but I tend to think that few churches have a structured introduction that is sufficient to the task.

What I've heard suggests to me that we go lightly with a read of Mark's gospel, then simply turn up to 'church' and Bible studies (adult Sunday School/home groups). But I'd like to see a structured decent length series of experiences for a new Christian (thinking older youth to adult here). Over a two year period, it would include seminars, and at least a weekend (a couple?) if not a week away at a 'retreat' for study, reflection, prayer and counselling with an older Christian.

[Just on 'retreats', I attended a Capernwray fellowship school when I was younger and was impressed that their attitude was serious about the Bible, about prayer and living the Christian life, but also serious about enjoyable surroundings: it was in a converted country estate; serious about enjoyable food and appreciation of a thoughtful approach to the physical and aesthetic aspects of life: no hair shirts, but no indulgence either.]

The experiences would include directed reading of the Bible: perhaps the entire Pentateuch, one major or a few minor prophets (Isaiah would be my choice), a selection of Psalms, and in the NT Luke's gospel, Acts, and either Romans or the trio of Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians (hmm, now have I got the order right?) then, say James then Revelation. That would be a year's reading with suitable brief guide notes to contextualise the books.

There should also be theological reading and reflection in a group context; perhaps a few churches could join together for this, to encourage theological thinking, connecting thought with life and modelling prayer. To the extent possible, I'd want to encourage the reading of proper theologians too, not popular reductions.

Lastly, I'd include reading and discussion on church/theological history, Christian social action (including actually doing some), and current issues of Christian practice (connection with everyday life), thought and proclamation (encountering contemporary world views).

The message this would send is that Christian faith is a serious business and needs to be seriously taken up. I think the message that any light-weight induction into the faith sends is that Christian life is at the level of cake baking: simple recipes done quickly with no profound impact on life.

This post at Evangelion is a nice link on teaching theology.

Evolution: April fooled you?

Is 'evolution is a fact' really an April Fool's joke? It seems to be when you expand the definition.

Templeton undoing 'religion'.

Another of the blogs I watch that had an article of interest: it touches the intersection of 'religion' and science. Of course, for most religions, and for much Christian theology, this is fine. But its not biblical!

Atheist? Just don't bother!

In a recent press report the Governor of the Reserve Bank, Glenn Stevens, was reported as linking his Christian faith with aspects of his work during a speech he gave at a Christian gathering.
There was the usual run of silly comments that press articles attract (very rarely to they attract reasoned debate, of any kind…they’re akin to the local bus stop for quality of observation and argument), but one that took my eye was this:

“Oh great, another one in a position of power that believes in the magic man in the sky”

This represents a typical line of cynicism that is used with some frequency in recent times: cute but pointless;
Well, almost pointless, because there is a response.
Christians don’t ‘believe in a magic man in the sky’. For a start we don’t believe that God has a spatial characteristic. Perhaps criticism of Christian belief should start with an understanding of its text, the Bible! Then you may as well develop a clear understanding of the meaning of the distinction between the Old and New Testaments.
 
I'd say something like this:

"You don't act as though God doesn't exist (that will get most atheists worked up!): Why? You act as though your thoughts have real meaning and signfiicance; if there was no God and material was the ultimate basis of all that is, I don't see how anything would have genuine significance; after all, it would all be mere material, and as we know, material has no thoughts."

If you have no belief in God, in Christian terms: that is the creator and sustainer of the cosmos who is the author of life, relationships and volition, then your thoughts, intentions and love only have accidental utility and no significance beyond a random collision of material particles; for a Christian, they have genuine validity and are reflective of the ultimately personal; that mind produced matter, and not the other way around.

If mind comes from matter, then it matters about as much as matter itself does: not much.

If matter comes from mind, then we know that mind matters above matter, which is how we mind our matter in the first place.

Sacred Science Book

A comment on my post on Darwin's novels mentioned an entry on another blog that connected for the commenter.

That blog is a couple of years old, but an interesting post on the Bible is not a science text.

BTW, I don't entirely 'follow' the blog I got this off....its a tad fiesty for my inclinations; but this post had a connection for me. Maybe it does for you too.

Servant Leadership?

Caught this quote, from the fellow who invented the term 'servant-leader', with a critical comment on the idea. It is from Creating Leaderful Organisations by Joseph Raelin (Berrett-Koehler Publications, San Francisco 2003)

Darwin's novels

I took some time off from a recent conference I attended to browse a local bookshop. In the history section I picked up Darwin’s two novels: the Origin of the Species and the Descent of Man, thinking I must re-read them.

As I was mulling over those who think that Darwinism’s ideas as they have now transmogrified inform the Genesis creation account. I don’t think Darwin saw it that way, though; and nor have many other commentators who consider that account of origins as in diametric competition with the biblical account.

The very title of Darwin’s “Origin of Species” in the light of its content, sets it at odds with Genesis 1.

Indeed, the claim at the outset denies that Genesis 1 does provide any information about origins, because if not self-sufficient, then how accurate? After all, if it did provide information (and not a mythic tale, as some seem to think it is), and was accepted, there would be no need for a competing account!

Darwin clearly thought that his thoroughgoing materialism set to right people’s views of the origin of life and all its forms, denying in terms that there was any real alternative and the alternative explanations offered being merely emergent from the materialism that he proposed as what is finally real.

But Darwin did more than make a claim about sources; he implicitly made a claim about the metaphysically basis for our take on final questions. This is not simply a claim about a technical matter that can be relegated to science’s closet of details, but is an over-arching statement about the nature of the world and our place in it, that has to throw other such claims into competition in their own ‘struggle for survival’

In Darwin’s formulation, man is attached to the soil, but without any ‘breathed in-ness’ of God, and no modelling by God, but by chance; this breaking the relationship of love and joining us not to a person, reflecting his image, but to dust, inevitably seen as being it its image; arisen in a struggle for existence that refers not to a very good creation, which is devoid of struggle, but to an already broken world where the hand of God is obscured by our rejecting of his kinship.

That Darwin sets out from a completely different starting point to the Bible is evident in that struggle for existence in Darwin presupposes and is based on a world in pain. The “Origin of Species’” claim of ultimacy detaches us from the personal and plants us squarely in the material. There is no middle ground.

Earthworm?

I was more than amused to read that the English polemicist Richard Dawkins likened Senator Fielding, to the Senator’s disadvantage, to an ‘earthworm’in his (Dawkins) recent outing in Melbournes festival of atheism.

My amusement was not for Dawkins, for his rapier wit, or delightful use of language; none of which was in evidence in the jibe, but against him; and for Fielding.

The background to this is that on an ABC TV program, Sen. Fielding aligned himself with those who believe that the creation is but a few thousand years old, as against the those who think that the cosmos, and earth to boot, are many billions of years old.

Dawkins was on the same program and declared the young age to be a ‘non-trivial error’, akin to thinking that the United States was only 8 metres from coast to coast.

I agree, it is a non-trivial error, but on the other foot. Dawkins’ position is akin to thinking that the United States is wider than the Earth!

But my amusement?

Dawkins, if you’ve not detected, or do not know, adheres at least implicitly to philosophical materialism: he thinks, or so it seems, that what exists is only material, or the result of material; thus mind is an epiphenomenon of matter, as is language and, for that matter, grand opera; but so, of course, are love, intellect,  and ideas.

When thinking of this, I think of Darwin’s recursive defeater; he observed something along the lines that if his idea of evolution was the result of random changes in a monkey’s brain, then what would commend it to our attention: the whole of our world becomes just a jangle of atoms aimlessly rearranged by mute forces. Whence ‘aimfulness’ when all that is real is mere aimlessness? How, then does anything have any meaning: everything has the same status and is finally a value-free pile of material; and nothing else.

So Dawkins’ comparing Fielding to an earthworm falls flat. What after all, is the basis for comparing intelligence in a material world where random material action has caused everything? With the only final point of reference being material, Dawkins can say nothing meaningful about either himself or Fielding and so his claim has no content, unless he can explain how value is derived from material when there is no reference for value within a material universe and no source outside it.

God used evolution?

I was discussing with a friend the notion that God might have used evolution to complete the creation.


We were talking about Wilder-Smith’s wonderful book “God: To Be or Not To Be” and came to the conclusion that for God to have used evolution he would have had to make it do that which it is not able to do.

That is, he would have to use change processes not to produce chance outcomes, but purposed outcomes. He would have to inject teleology into that which is purely stochastic.

But that means he would have made a thing (chance) which could not achieve his ends (a creative purpose) and so work against the thing made (chance); which is to say, that he couldn’t have used chance at all, because chance leads to dissolution, not creation!

So God could only conceivably use chance to create by not using chance at all, but by over-riding (guiding, people might like to suggest!) it. The very notion breaks down under the weight of its own incoherence.

Evolution weekend

A quote from a newsletter I received recently:

The compatibility, or lack thereof, of evolution and faith remains a hot debate among Christians. Prominent evangelical [Ecumenist] theologian Dr. R. Albert Mohler Jr. has said he finds it impossible to reconcile the two. While he does not deny that changes do take place in the animal kingdom and that there is even a process of natural selection, he firmly rejects theistic evolution and the argument that the process is entirely natural and in no case supernatural.
"God was not merely fashioning the creation of what was already pre-existent, nor was He merely working with a process in order to guide it in some generalized way, nor was He waiting to see how it would turn out," Mohler has said.

Which question?

Thinking further on  my previous post which was just a quote from Schaeffer's True Spirituality:
Schaeffer's driving us back to a universe that is at root personal indicates that final questions are of 'the personal' and not of material.
So discussion of origins, for instance, with all that such discussions suggest for 'first philosohpy' and how we make an ontological structure of our world (that is our conceptualisation of the world...the world in our head) comes up as either a question that is finally personal; that is, related to God and thus the only connection we have in these terms is the creation account in Genesis 1, and its corollaries throughout the Bible, or is finally material, when, to my mind, the question recurses upon itself and becomes its own annhialator.
If ultimate questions are finally material, then there is no real ultimacy to them, as the question becomes merely an arrangement of material and has no meaning beyond that arrangement.
This then puts Satre's first question into an interesting light. I think it was Satre, who proposed that the basic philosophical question is "why is there something, rather than nothing?"
From a materialist perspective the question is strange. It seems to ask about reasons, which are an attribute of personal volition, rather than causes in a strick mechanistic causal sense. If it is mere the latter, then the question is highly uninteresting, becuase it will just give us matter 'all the way back' and so grind to a halt in a tiresome regress. That is, it will tell us nothing more than we (think we) know now: that material is all we've got! We end up where we start out.
 However, if it is a question of reasons, then it is interesting. Only, how can it be answered if it is denied that the universe is finally personal?

A couple of articles that I think overlap:

Terry Mortenson on philosphical naturalism and Normal Geisler on beware of philosophy

A Christian philosophy?

I wonder if this is the starting point of a Christian philosophy. It's from Schaeffer's "True Spirituality" the beginning of chapter 5.

Its a long quote, but please stick with it.

Our generation is overwhelmingly naturalistic. There is an almost complete commitment to the concept of the uniformity of natural causes in a closed system. This is its distinguising mark. If we are not careful, even though we say we are biblical Christians and supernaturalists, yet nevertheless the naturalism of our generation tends to come in upon us. It may infiltrate our thinking without our recognising its coming, like a fog creeping in through a window opened only half an inch. Immediately, Christians begin to loose the reality of their Christian life. As I travel about and speak in many countries, I am impressed with the number of times I am asked by Christains about the loss of the reality. Surely this is one of the greatest, and perhaps the greatest reason for a loss of reality: that while we say we believe one thing, we allow the spirit of the naturalism of the age to come in upon us, unrecognised. All too often the reality is lost becuase the 'ceiling' is down too close upon our heads. It is too low. And the 'ceiling' which closes us in is the naturalistic type of thinking.
Now the Christian's spirituality, as we wrote of it in the previous chapters, does not stand alone. It is related to the unity of the Bible's view of the universe. Theis means that we must understand--intellectually, with the windows open--that the universe is not what our genreation says it is, seeing only the naturalistic universe. This relates directly to what we have been dealing with in the earlier chapters. For example, in chapter one we have said that we are to love God enough to say 'thank you' even for the difficult things. Now surely, we must immediately understand, as we say this, that this has no meaning whatsoever unless we live in a personal universe in which there is a personal God who objectively exists. To claim that we are to say 'thank you' to God in the midst of the hard things of life, without this being framed in the reality of a personal universe, in which a personal God objectively  exists, makes 'thank you' an absolutely meaningless phrase.
Similarly, in study two we  touched upon the same thing, when we saw that in the normal perspective it is very difficult to say 'no' to things and to self, in the things mentality and the self-mentality of men, especially in the twentieth century. But we saw that on the Mount of Transfiguration we were brought  face to face with a su pernatural universe. Here we find Moses and Elijah speaking to Christ as he is glorified. And we saw that this supernautural universe is not a far-off universe. Quite the contrary: there is a perfect continuity, as in normal life. So (Luke 9:37) the day after these things had occurred Jesus and the disciples went down the mountain and entered into the normal things of life. Indeed, the normal sequence was continuing while they were there on the mountain. There is a perfect example of the temporal and spatial relationship here. As they went up and climbed the mountain, there was no place where they passed into the philosophic other. As they went up the inclined plain of the mountain, there was no break. And if they had had watches upon their wrists, these watches would not have stopped at some point: they would have ticked away.  and when they came down, it was the next day and the normal sequence had proceeded. Here we find the supernatural world in relationship to the normal sequence and spatial relationships of the presesnt world.
Also in chapter two we considered Christ's redemptive death, which has no meaning whatsoever outside the relationship of a supernatural world. The only reason the words 'redemptive death' have any meaning is because there is a personal God who exists and, more than that, has a characrer. He is not morally neutral. When man sins against the character, which is the law of the universe, he is guilty, and God will judge that man on the basis of true moral guilt. In such a setting, the words 'the redemptive death of Christ' have meaning, otherwise they cannot.
Now we must remember what we are talking about: the fact that the true Christiain life, as we have examined it, is not to be separated from the unity of the full biblical teaching: it is not to be abstracted from the unity of the Bible's emphasis on the supernatural world. This make sense of the biblical image of me as a Christian, face to face with the supernatural world, as the bride, linking himself to Christ, the Bridegroom, so that he, the crucified, risen and glorified Christ, may bring forth fruit through me...
This is the Bible's message, and when we see it so, and are in this framework, rather than the naturalistic one (which comes in so easily upon us) the teaching that Christ as the bridegroom will bring forth fruit through me ceases to be strange. The Bible insists that we live in reality in a supernatural universe. But if we remove the objective reality of the supernatural universe in any area, this great reality of Christ the Bridebgroom bringing forth fruit through us, immediately falls to the floor, and all that Christianty is at such a point is a psychological and sociological aid, a tool; and that is all. So as soon as we remove the s upernaturalness of the u nivesre, all we have left is Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, in which religion is to be simply a sociological tool for the future. In Huxley's concept of romantic evolutionary humanism, religion has a place, not because there is any truth in it, but because in the strange evolutionary formation, man as he now is simply needs it...Remove the supernatural from the universe, in thinking and in action, and there is nothing left but Honest to God [a book by Robinson], which deals only with the fact of anthropology, and has nothing to say to questions of the reality of communicating with God...All the reality of Christianity rests upon the reality of the existence of a personal God, and the reality of the supernatural view of the total universe.

Death by Leadership

I quote from Mintzberg's latest book "Managing"

By the excessive promotion of leadership, we demote everyone else. We create clusters of followers who have to be driven to perform, instead of leveraging the natural propensity of people to cooperate in communities. In this light, effective managing can be seen as engaging and engaged, connecting and connected, supporting and supported.

How different this is from the tired rhetoric I hear too often in church circles about 'leaders' and 'leadership'. Also, how remarkably congruent with the community life extolled in the New Testament.

But, what gives me pause for thought is that this challenge to the hollowness of 'leadership' as a notion did not come from a bible-based Christian critique of business, management, the treatment of people in organisations or the like: that is, the church being prophetically attunded to the scriptures, but from a scholar who simply seeks to go where the data and his observations lead him.

I often wonder what we pay theologians for...and suspect that we get a very poor return for our investment on some occasions!

What about evolution?

In a blog on the crusades, Peter Bolt made this statement:

Now, during my high school Scripture teaching years, I often had a formally parallel question thrown at me: “What about evolution?” After this gauntlet was thrown down with appropriately monotonous frequency, I honed an equally monotonous answer: “Well, what about evolution?”

Now, I'm glad he did scripture teaching at high school: a great mission activity, but on the surface it's a lame answer: more than monotonous Peter!

The question is one often thrown up, at least implicitly, in many conversations and writings. The not very sub-text of the question is: evolution eliminates the need for, if not the reality of supernatural explanations for the cosmos and life within it. Therefore, the questioner must believe, the Christian explanation, which is supernatural, fails and so thus fails the entire Christian program.

Beneath all this is of course the never articulated understanding that naturalism explains the basic reality of our lives: there is material; and that is all. It and natural processes are comprehensively explanatory at every level (bang goes philosophical idealism, of course, but I'd be pretty pleased about that particular side-effect).

The answer to the question is of course, not to say that the Biblical account of origins and evolutionary speculations can co-exist, because they can't and if it is suggested then it amounts to saying that the Biblical account is symbolic or metaphorical, but for the reality we go to evolution, but evolution is definitive and that eliminates the biblical explanation which only garners its force from materialist postulations and is therefore derivative and not definitive!

What is the answer then?

Well, I think it is to take naturalism to its end point: if material is all there is, and evoultion is true, then final questions can only be material and give us no answers, but leave us where we started, with only a causal chain between! That is, we've gotten nowhere. So the assertion disappears in a puff of its own logic.

But the biblical view is that final questions are personal, and are important as they tell us who we are (not material, and with real significance in real relationships) and by genesis who we are like and made by and therefore for fellowship with. Love has significance. In a material world, it is just a stochastic conjunction of particles.

Pain is a problem?

In Spectrum the other week was a fabulous article on 'Pain', by Elizabeth Farrelly. She referred to C. S. Lewis' book 'The Problem of Pain', where Lewis says a few things of interest. One is that pain is essential to justice. I disagree. Undoing the benifits of wrong is the essence of justice. I think he's referring to 'the wages of sin is death'; God's judgement on the movement of man in denial of God. That's different. Death is the antithesis of God's action in creation, and represents the outcome of the rejection of God's relation with his creation. Pain results and is the great marker of a creation in crisis. To that extent, Lewis' metaphor of pain being God's megaphone telling us that we are not a-right in a life framed by our own ends, is, I think, apt.

One 'benefit' that does come from pain is that people show thier nobility in insisting by their action that (a) pain is not to be accepted, but worked against (thus the floods of aid to Haiti, etc.), because it is not a right part of our lives, but a part of things-gone-wrong, and (b) that people in the face of personal pain will often fight against it and its effects. But in and of itself, pain has nothing to commend it. It is a marker of death, and death is the last enemy which Christ has done away with.

[I seem to recall Pannenberg writing that all fear is fear of death...how close this is to fear of pain, that which motivates us to avoid it!]

Doing things by slogan

As I was reflecting on the design and management of the 'Connect09' effort which the Diocese undertook last year, I came across this blog entry on the danger of 'management by slogan'.

I wonder to what extent C09 was the result of an analysis of the system deficiencies that lead to the need to connect, and what system changes were made to correct the deficiencies. Unfortunately,  my experience of C09 is that it amounted to substantial amounts of 'more of the same' which did nothing to either analyse or correct that which has broken the connections between the Anglican church and the community which I saw in existance in the 1960s and 1970s.

What, I wonder, happened?

Leading from the back

In a recent church news the following quote was printed:

Asked what would be his priority if he returned to leadership in a local church, New Testament scholar Gordon Fee replied: "No matter how long it might take, I would set about with a single passion to help a local body of believers recapture the New Testament church's understanding of itself as an eschatological community (The Ordinary Hero by Tim Chester, p. 165).

Now, there it is...'leadership' in a local church? I'm glad that Fee had the sense to realise that if he returned to serve a local church his job would be to HELP in some way. So often we take the notion of 'leader' from the world, maybe from the military, and think it has some application in the church.

An example of how this skews things came from a friend recently. She related how an acquaintance was over-awed by being asked to take on the leadership of a particular group. I'd be surprised if she was told what she would be expected to do, but being told it was 'leading' would be enough to give anyone the jitters if it was not stripped of worldly connotations; she would possibly have known that it is the Spirit that leads and we all follow together contributing as our gifts can provide.

It would have been more useful if she had been asked to help with the __ group. And the dimensions of that helping given to her: maybe organising the roster, helping people prepare their own contributions, finding fill-ins when someone can't do their roster, be the contact point, etc. More like convening, facilitating, organising, or just plain helping (Gordon Fee's word). My earlier post on Mintzberg on 'leading' is apposite here.

When we start to think 'ministry' and not 'leader' we'll all be better off, and as Christians we might all be encouraged that we have a part to play in the life of the church and not just sit and watch, which is what 'leaders' so often engender and the concept in its worldly configuration suggests.

BTW, I was very encouraged to hear a person who was going to serve at a remote area church talk about the 'contribution' he hoped to make: a much more Christian conceptualisation of joining the life of a church than any worldly hubristic notions of 'leading' (and, please don't start me on the oxymoronic idea of 'servant-leader')

Bible refs on gun sights

In response to the news of Bible references being inscribed on pieces of military weaponry, a minister at my church penned the following (in part) in our weekly bulletin:

The message is so wrong on so many levels. When will we learn that this sort of misguided tokenism only increases our fascination with the notion that God is somehow on our side. And this is wrong. It is never a matter of whose side God is on; what a bizarre thought if we really stop and think about it. Oh that we would remember that God is sovereign over the whole earth and that he is working out his plans and purposes. The real question for us is whose side are we on; God’s or our own?...

Because Jesus came to turn our world upside down and inside out; he knew that what is displayed on the outside of our lives has its genesis in what is going on inside. Is Jesus glorified by what is etched on a gun or by a changed life? Think on these verses:

Our thoughts. Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honourable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things. Phil 4:8

Our attitudes. Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.   Phil 2:5-8

Our lives: A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another, even as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.  John 13:34-35

Our speech: et no unwholesome word proceed from your mouth, but only such a word as is good for edification according to the need of the moment, so that it will give grace to those who hear… but sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts, always being ready to make a defense to everyone who asks you to give an account for the hope that is in you, yet with gentleness and reverence; Eph 4:29, 1 Petr 3:15.

The external will always reflect what is going on inside. If our thoughts and attitudes are not being shaped by God then why would we ever think that our lives and speech will be? There is an order here. Let’s not be fascinated with guns and etched verses—the real question is how is God shaping our thoughts and attitudes so that we love one another and are always ready to tell others of the wonderful hope we have in Jesus. For in this way only will our world see that Jesus is indeed the light of the world (John 8:12).

The mainstream view

"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).

Evil and its problems

This was recently left as a comment. I haven't let the comment through, but :

http://aristophrenium.com/?p=436

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'?

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!

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:

…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’.

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!

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.

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?