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A theology of friendship – who knows where to start?

Radical Believer asked in his comment about a theology of friendship. My own study and thought has tended to explore the wider range of human experiences gathered under the multi-referential term love. Friendship is one expression of human love, and the classic exposition of love, friendship, affection and eros is C S Lewis, The Four Loves. Lewis's book suffers from the qualities and limitations of all Lewis's work. It is sexist, partial and at times infuriatingly condescending, with the tone of the University Common room of the mid-20th Century. But it is also written by a man who had married late, out of compassion which had grown from intellectual companionship to a love the intensity of which makes A Grief Observed one of the most genuine documents ever written on human love and loss. As well as which, Lewis is a moral writer, not moralistic, but ethically alert to those inner mechanisms of motive, human relationships, intellectual and emotional intelligence. So his book is still my starting point – and I've just used it again as a way into a quite significant theological exploration of love as self-giving. The scanned picture is of my hardback First Edition :))

A theology of friendship has been explored recently in several interesting contexts. One in particular is of significant interest to me. Friendship has become a major theme in developing an adequate theology of disability. Receiving the Gift of Friendship: Profound Disability, Theological Anthropology and Ethics by Hans Reinders is a substantial exploration of what it means to be human. The relation between our humanity and our capacity for friendship is the context within which Reinders explores the theological significance, and ethical implications of what it means to be a friend. In the background are two of the most important figures in the past 60 years, so far as our understanding of humanity and friendship are concerned. Jean Vanier and Henri Nouwen live the theology of friendship, and friendship is defined in the actions and dispositions we inhabit as we love and accompany others in life together.

But radical believer is looking for starting points. Can readers of this blog suggest some of these in the comments? Who knows what to read, where to look for theological reflection on friendship? And you poets out there – poems on friendship?

24 September 2010
Hospitality that distinctly human way of obeying God

If a hospital is where you go when you need looking after, a place of healing and care, then I suppose I can see where the word hospitality comes from, semantically speaking. I came across the picture of the three angels by Marc Chagall again yesterday while looking for something else. This Old Testament story of Abraham and Sarah is at once comical and mystical, poignant and puzzling. But the basic theme and the obvious point of the story is the refusal in Abraham's time to refuse welcome, food and refreshment. Entertaining angels unawares might be a miraculous by product – but the first obligation is welcome, provision and the courtesies of care. Even angels need a place to feel safe and be cared for in the desert.

Ever since I read his Reith lectures, The Persistence of Faith, I have read, admired and learned much from the Chief Rabbi, Jonathan Sacks. He has recently written a commentary on Genesis in which he suggests that the human being is invested with such dignity and value by God, that to welcome and care for another person is more important than obligations of prayer and personal devotion. The suggestion that God will understand our missing prayers while we serve others is a profoundly counter-intuitive move in the exegesis of this passage. But something similar is happening in the parable of the Good Samaritan. The passers by were either watching out for themselves, or focused on doing their religious duty to God. Both were wrong.

Of course hospitality can take unexpected turns. So the announcement of a baby for the octogenarian Sarah is one of those great literary moments of poignant comedy. Sarah laughed. Now mocking the words of a guest is a serious breach of the courtesies of hospitality. But be fair. It did sound far fetched. And so this story lies at the pivotal moment of Jewish history when the promise to Abraham would be fulfilled and would depend on welcome given, food provided, and the courtesy of care to unknown guests.

I am left wondering about the way we live our lives, and whether we live with a responsibility to those who touch our lives, and whether friendship and welcome, trust and provision, care and courtesy, can survive the legitimation of selfishness that lies at the heart of the discourse of recession. Used often enough, and with the persuasive authority of media reported discourse, words like hard choices, severe cuts, reduced costs of welfare provision, are normalised, and the unthinkable becomes thinkable because it is reiterated till we inwardly accede to its inevitability. But not so. Not if this story still has currency as human wisdom and divine revelation.

The care for each other, the looking out for the vulnerable, the necessary championing of compassion as the default response of a civilised society, would be one way of practising hospitality as a social virtue and even as a political value. Wonder if the church of Jesus might have a think about what it might mean to embody welcome, inclusion, the courtesy of care, and like hospitals be places where healing and being looked after are more important than anything else. Back to this word missional again – still don't like it. I think to embody the hospitality of God, to entertain others and discover angels, might make us think again about what is possible for God. Sarah laughed – I don't blame her. Sometimes angels say ludicrous things – like at the Annunciation to Mary, and Jesus birth to shepherds - and at an empty tomb to another Mary. And isn't it interesting that some of the most moving post resurrection stories are about hospitality – Jesus cooking breakfast, and breaking bread before bed time…..

23 September 2010
Friendship with God.

Only when God is seen does life truly begin.

Only when we meet the living God in Christ do we know what life is.

We are not some casual and meaningless product of evolution.

Each of us is the result of a thought of God.

Each of us is willed.

Each of us is loved.

Each of us is necessary.

There is nothing more beautiful than to be surprised by the Gospel, by the encounter with Christ.

There is nothing more beautiful that to know Him and to speak to others of our friendship with Him.

(Benedict XVI from the inauguration Mass as Pope on April 24, 2005)

21 September 2010
Coincidence, providence, random Bible verses and guidance or what?

A week or so ago driving down the road and looked at the mileometer.

Total miles travelled, though I didn't reset it before leaving, 114.9 miles.

At the same time I'm passing a petrol station where unleaded petrol is 114.9 pence.

Now I don't do the random open your Bible and see what it says thing, so deduce this is sheer coincidence.

Begin to worry about the word coincidence when providence, or guidance might be more theologically responsible words.

Run through in my head whether this could be a Bible verse – if so, could only be Psalm 114.9.

Still don't do the random Bible verse thing, but just in case….I check, but it's OK.

Psalm 114 only has 8 verses, so couldn't be guidance.

Spoke with a friend about this coincidence, and received the following email reply, which is worryingly worrying!

"As I'm sure you've already checked – Psalm 114 sadly only has 8 verses – however the 9th verse on the 114th page of my NIV says "If it is spreading in the skin, the priest shall pronounce him unclean: it is infectious", is that of any help!! This guidance thing is difficult."

Now supposing petrol goes up in price, what verses might be appropriate guidance from the relevant Psalm.

I've looked – most of them are quite comforting – 140.9 is a good one for my enemies! As are 141.9 and 143.9.

And I like 146.9 as a message of comfort and inclusion for those who have little sense of belonging.

No. I still don't think random verses are the way ahead. Anyway, I hope petrol doesn't go up that much anytime soon!

20 September 2010
The Spiritual Quest of John Henry Newman and Lead Kindly Light as a Hymn for Postmodern doubters?

John Henry Newman is by any standards a giant of the Victorian age. A supreme literary artist, a profound religious thinker, a man of delicate feelings and gifted with a conscience which sought and found its magnetic north only after much wavering. His conversion to the Catholic Church shocked and shook the English Establishment to its foundations. His spirituality is rooted in an intellect suffused with deep religious affections, informed by long immersion in the Church Fathers, disciplined and kept alert by a conscience both precise and commanding, nurtured and nourished by prayer and meditation on the mystery and majesty of God. Newman loved God first with his mind, then with his heart, and finally with his whole being.

Much will be said about him today, and there are over a dozen new books to coincide with his Beatification. But you know, there is probably no more appreciative and careful assessment of Newman in print than that written by Dr Alexander Whyte, in which warm admiration, reverent and restrained criticism, and spiritual affinity are distilled into an essay replete with sympathetic insight and balanced in generous judgement. It is one of the great acts of ecumenical courage that Dr Alexander Whyte, Minister of the Free Church of Scotland, the most influential preacher and churchman in his denomination, a Moderator and Principal of the Free Church College in Edinburgh, should be one who on his CV had a warm and friendly visit to Cardinal John Henry Newman at the Birmingham Oratory. Whyte was an example of the "hospitable hearted evangelical" a phrase he himself coined, a man of catholic spirit, theologically generous and for these reasons, in the view of many in his denomination, a maverick.

But in Cardinal Newman, Principal Whyte found a kindred spirit. Both were men of principled conscience, devotional constancy, intellectual range and grasp, first class literary and theological scholars in an age of information explosion, loyal and tenacious to their respective church traditions, and exemplary in the living out of their respective spiritual traditions.The Dream of Gerontius Whyte thought the best religious poetry since Dante.

But it is Newman's best known hymn I'm reproducing today. Why? Because it is an honest expression of doubt, uncertainty, wistfulness, self-knowledge, and hard won trust. There are few times I've sung it – it's now too gloomy for contemporary worship tastes, it's plummeting down the list of funeral choices, and as with much else Victorian it's simply too cleverly written for an age more attuned to strap lines, sound bytes and alternative devotional books like The Dark Night of the Soul for Dummies!

But as an articulation of what it feels like to not be sure, to have lost your bearings, to pray for re-orientation and recognisable landmarks;

as an affirmation of trust that is half way between defiance and surrender, and lives the tension between fear and faith;

as a prayer that reads like the experience of looking into a dark night, hands groping forwards to intimate danger, feet inching and feeling their way but going on nevertheless;

as a poem that uses words as a means of grace, and shapes them to the needs of the human heart

All this and much else makes Lead Kindly Light a devotional treasure that belongs to the whole church. Today is a day he would have been embarrassed by. Not because he did not believe the Church should canonise its finest examples of Christlikeness; but because he would never have thought himself worthy. And self-disqualification may be the more important qualification for sainthood. Anyway, as I make my way to church, I read again, slowly, this hymn for pilgrims.

Lead, Kindly Light, amidst th'encircling gloom,
Lead Thou me on!
The night is dark, and I am far from home,
Lead Thou me on!
Keep Thou my feet; I do not ask to see
The distant scene; one step enough for me.

I was not ever thus,
nor prayed that Thou shouldst lead me on;
I loved to choose and see my path;
but now lead Thou me on!
I loved the garish day, and, spite of fears,
Pride ruled my will. Remember not past years!

So long Thy power hath blest me,
sure it still will lead me on.
O’er moor and fen, o’er crag and torrent,
till the night is gone,
And with the morn those angel faces smile, which I
Have loved long since, and lost awhile!

19 September 2010
Benedict XVI in London, Education, Dialogue and Freedom ( I )

When Tony Blair famously said the priorities for a 21st Century economy were "Education. Education. Education", he said more than he meant, and New Labour delivered less than he promised. Long before him the Scottish Reformation Kirk aimed to have a school in every parish, an historic decision Pope Benedict XVI commended in his response to the Queen's welcome. Education remained closely related to the Church in its various expressions in the following centuries, Catholic, Established and Nonconformist, until from the mid 19th Century onwards the state increasingly took responsibility for universal education. The resources needed, and the economic implications of having an educated, skilled and trained population capable of competing in modern industrialised societies, made it increasingly necessary that Government rather than Voluntary Agencies should drive educational provision.

Alongside state provision in Britain, the Catholic Church has had its own established network of faith schools. Education remains a primary goal of Catholic social policy and theology today, and involves massive commitments of resources worldwide. When Benedict spoke on Friday to several thousand young people at St Mary's University College he spoke of those things that make life good and make for human happiness. To be happy is to be a friend of God. To live well there must be good models, those whose lives are worthy of imitation. There is much in Benedict's public discourse, and in his message here in Britain, that reflects the profound thinking of his encyclicals Deus Caritas Est and Caritas in Veritate. To be friends of God is a description of a relationship in which love is the exchange of divine grace and human response. He spoke of God's love, and God's desire for happiness and holiness as essentials of a full humanity, and did so as one who has thought profoundly, and spoke simply.

This is a Pope whose theological emphases decisively shape his public discourse, and he talks with ease and practised confidence about the love of God, but also about those cultural and intellectual trends that undermine and erode the humane goals of education as a humanly formative activity. To talk theologically, and with a heightened social conscience in a showpiece Catholic educational establishment, is to introduce a quite different level of discourse about the meaning, significance, purpose and practice of education. Whatever arguments there may be about the place of faith based schools in a pluralist culture, they provide an important corrective and in a democarcy a required alternative, to secularised education evacuated of religiously formative education.

John Henry Newman's Idea of a University reads today like an impractical, unaffordable, unwanted and idealistic educational utopia. Unless of course you want to challenge the prevailing secular view that education is a process whose primary goal is economic growth and development, student employability and mass produced graduates. But I'm reluctant to concede the inevitable and final necessity for such educational reductionism, or that these are the only or best educational goals. It may indeed be inevitable that state funded education in our universities has to bend to the economic priorities, and available funding of the Government of the day. But there will still be, in my own view, a place for those institutions which exist to serve more humanising ends, including religious instruction, moral formation, humanising values, intellectual humility, and these explored within a faith tradition both itself open to critique and yet critically aware of alternative worldviews.

Benedict has a similarly rich and humane view of the purpose of religious encounter between different faiths. Such meeting he said yesterday, is a necessary expression of human formation, cultural development and social interaction. Co-operation and dialogue engender mutual respect, and enable faith traditions to support each other in seeking freedom of worship. of conscience and of association. Nor should such co-operation and mutual understanding be selfish, but provide a platform from which faith groups can work for peace, mutual understanding and witness to the world. Living alongside each other and learning and growing in respect and knowledge of each other, provides a fertile soil for peace, justice and works of compassion to grow.

Whatever else can be said about this Papal visit, each time Benedict has spoken he has been generous in spirit, rigorous in intellect and both warm and dignified in his responsiveness. And the issues he deals with are of common concern to all humanity – justice and peace, the foundation of moral standards, religious freedom and freedom of conscience, the nature of education, the relations of faith and reason, and of spirituality and secularity. This is a man of courage, conviction and adamantine firmness on dogma; he is also a man of intellectual power, pastoral passion for the global church and ranks as one of the greatest Catholic theologians of the past 50 years. Interesting that the current Pope and the current Archbishop of Canterbury are both regarded as scholar theologians of the first class, at a time when intellectual range and depth are discounted in the markets of contemporary communication culture.

18 September 2010
Benedict XVI in Scotland – a mass celebration of the Mass, and an occasion of public witness

It isn't often that 70,000 people gather together in a public park to affirm their faith, to share in community and to celebrate the Christian Gospel story in praise and a public act of worship. The exuberance and festive atmosphere, tempered by a cold wind in bright sunshine, bore witness to the place of Christian faith and experience in the lives of many thousands of Scottish Roman Catholics.

Earlier yesterday morning I listened to a discussion on Radio Scotland about the persecution and discrimination against the Scottish Catholic community in the earlier years of the 20th Century. Scottish historian, Tom Devine, put such discrimination in its context, and it wasn't a context Scottish folk, or the Church of Scotland, should be proud of. Then we moved inevitably to what is now referred to as Scotland's enduring shame, the sectarian undercurrent that remains a dangerous and toxic undertow in Scottish life.

Before writing more, let me tell you a story of a young Lanarkshire Baptist, who around 1970 was at night school doing O level English, in an evening class. The class was made up of him, and five nuns from the Sisters of Charity Convent. He had never encountered a nun in person before. Eighteen months previously he hadn't even been in a church before! I remember still, trying to explain my conversion, and that I was a Baptist, and wanted to be a minister – and the smiles and nodding heads. All I ever received from those Sisters was affirmation, welcome, encouragement and the quiet gentleness of those who lived up to the name of their order. I received charity – that old fashioned word for love that combines goodwill and conferred worth, supportive friendship, laughter and a common struggle with Shakespeare, Keats, and practical criticism. I don't remember specific conversations – I do remember looking forward to being there, and very early on discovering that loving and serving Jesus is a substantial enough foundation for fellowship across Christian traditions – habit wearing nuns and me with a denim jacket, very long hair, jeans and yes, high heeled boots! These five sisters encouraged and supported me through a hard year and never once called in question the reality and importance of my personal Christian experience. I wish I'd kept in touch with them, and if they are still around I wish them all blessing.

That is only one, though a deeply significant encounter, that has taught me always to assume friendship, to embrace rather than exclude, to respect difference and look for common ground with other people of faith. And to look with critical eye on the limited horizons, spiritual deficits, and theological distinctives of my own tradition as a Baptist. So the whole sectarian thing, with its latent hatred, chronic prejudice and acid-like social corrosiveness, I find a profound offense to the Gospel of Jesus, and to my own spirituality.

So an occasion when 70,000 Scottish Catholic people celebrate Mass in the presence of the Pope, and singing the praise of God in Christ in the power of the Spirit, I see as an historic act of witness in a culture where mass crowds are usually drawn together for events of far lesser import for human flourishing.

So when a 106 year old Catholic woman from Rutherglen speaks of the humbling privilege of being there with her great grandson; or two cowboy hat wearing women call themselves come-back Catholics and act as if that was actually a good and a life changing thing; or several children are blessed by an 83 year old man whose gentle hand proffered blessing expresses the Church's genuine attitude to its children; or when newly composed music is learned, practised and sung in worship in the open air of our largest city; or when the Gospel is read in public and Benedict speaks with carefully balanced encouragement and warning about the moral, intellectual and economic tendencies of British society, and urges a revitalising of faith and lived Christian values; when all that happens, and more, then the significance of yesterday's Bellahouston event is best understood on several levels.

As a social event it enabled a broad strand of Scottish religious tradition to give public voice to the core values of Roman Catholic faith. In doing so we witnessed freedom of religious expression, an affirmation that such faith and freedom are essential to a healthy society.

As a spiritual occasion, a large number of Roman Catholic people were strengthened in their faith, affirmed in their shared understanding of the Gospel, and given an opportunity to make pilgrimage together in shared worship and celebration.

As an ecumenical occasion, my own view is quite straightforward. Such a gathering indicates there are deep wells of devotion that still hold reserves of refreshing water in Scottish Catholic experience. And as Christianity in Western Europe, and in Scotland, is increasingly marginalised by the "aggressive secularism" that so concerns Pope Benedict XVI, there are important rapprochements and conversations that should be taking place across the traditions of the Christian church. Not an ecumenicity of institutional merger, or theological convergence – true ecumenism is not about dissolving diversity into uniformity. But a recognition that in building the economy (oekumene) of the Kingdom of God, co-operative fellowship, mutual supportiveness, respectful listening, humble learning, confident witnessing, arise not out of organisational fusion, but from a shared loyalty to God in Christ. Benedict talked of the importance of freedom and tolerance in any society which contains diverse faith communities. Equally necessary is freedom and tolerance between faith communities, and where possible co-operative friendship and mutual supportiveness.

I know. Maybe you need to be an 18 year old red hot freshly minted evangelical Baptist, encountering five Sisters of Charity whose patience and tolerance and love for Jesus were so unarguably obvious and so unsectarian in spirit, to write this kind of stuff decades later. Maybe so. In which case I gladly pay tribute to five sisters who, along with many others since, within and beyond Catholic and Baptist circles, have taught me much of what I know of generosity of mind, hospitality of heart and receptiveness of spirit. Through such experiential lenses I watched the Bellahouston celebration, and rejoiced that Christ was proclaimed.

17 September 2010
Benedict XVI in Scotland – openness of mind as part of the meaning of welcome.

Cor ad cor loquitur – heart speaks to heart. The words are the motto chosen by John Henry Newman after his conversion to the Roman Catholic Church. (I'll do a post on Newman on Sunday). On the official website for the papal visit the motto is explained by pointing to Newman's conviction that truth comes from the centre of the person.The most important form of communication is that of heart to heart, rather than relying only on words spoken and heard, and sometimes misheard, and liable to misunderstanding.

The controversies around the visit of Pope Benedict XVI are well enough known. I have views on most of them, and since they are likely to be misinformed, partial and unfair, because formed from media reports and slanted discussions, and about a tradition other than my own, I'm not for pontificating – allusion intended.

I'd rather do what one of the Catholic priests suggested would be the most important response Benedict and the British public can make – openness. The openness of the Pope to hear the different voices that will speak – the voices of young people seeking meaning and direction in life; the voices of victims of abuse whose pain and suffering must be given voice, and a hearing, and a response that acknowledges and addresses such profound wrong; the voices of those who feel excluded, who seek change, who feel alienated from their church and defined out of its communion; the voices of those angered and frustrated at moral stances that seem to ignore human consequences for example in relation to HIV protection; and yet also the voices of those looking for stability, a strengthening and recovery of moral and spiritual values that enhance human culture and enable human flourishing. And these are mixed and contradictory voices, asking questions that arise from the deep places of the heart, or emerge from the complexities and challenges of a contemporary culture in flux conflcting with a church tradition seeking to keep the faith once for all delivered.

But heart speaks to heart – and so when the Pope speaks he too has the right to be listened to. When other voices have spoken, and been heard, his voice must also be heard – and with openness of heart and mind. He has come to speak not only to the faithful of the Catholic Church, but as a major European voice, as a magisterial theologian and philosopher who is immensely learned in the Enlightenment philosophies of Western Europe, including Scottish philosophy, and in Catholic historical theology. While this is a state visit to this country, the Pope nevertheless is the head of a global faith tradition representing 1.1 billion people, and in his person he represents the pastoral care of the Roman Catholic Church for the faithful worldwide.

So his visit to Britain is a significant occasion, and the message he brings should be heard with openness of heart – not uncritical enthusiasm, but because this Pope is incapable of mere ecclesial platitudes, morally anemic pronouncements or politically correct blandness, his words should be received with critical respect, and weighed with intellectual fairness. His words should be interpreted as coming from the heart of the Christian faith in its Catholic expression, and will be best understood if trouble is taken to be theologically informed about Catholic theology, spirituality, devotion and institutional history.

And no, I'm not saying that is how everyone will hear him – public perceptions are often more shaped by populist rhetoric, dumbed down sound bytes, and image aided information flow. And that isn't Benedict's forte!. But informed critique and eschewing prejudiced caricature are indeed what I expect of those who claim to be intellectually engaged with the tradition Benedict XVI represents with such scholarly precision and intellectual candour. Whether as supporters or opponents, Catholics or non Catholics, those who want to be taken seriously as cultural commentators and serious reporters on matters of religious import and cultural significance, such as this papal visit, need to stop playing around with caricatures, uncritically perpetuating prejudiced opinion.

For example blaming an entire church tradition for the evil actions of some, as if the Roman Catholic Church were the only large voluntary organisation or religious grouping where the problem of child abuse exists, and as if the guilt by association principle was unchallenged norm, legally secure and morally defensible. Like the overwhelming majority of Catholic people, priests and laity, I believe such actions are wicked, criminal and should be brought to justice. But in evaluating the Catholic Church as a whole, the sin of the tiny minority should never mean the eclipse of widespread goodness, nor the betrayal of trust by some, negate the faithful and costly devotion of all others. That happens when, for example, we overlook or detract from the immense good that has been and continues to be done by the Roman Catholic Church, in care for the poor, educational provision, and development and medical aid, and this on a global scale.

Likewise, European civilisation is still heavily mortgaged to the historic contribution of the Catholic church. Consider the richly textured diversity of spiritual traditions which flow like a mighty river gathering from its many tributaries; or weigh the worth to human fulfillment of the great religious music, architecture and art of Europe, as human creativity fused with religious devotion to produce some of the greatest masterpieces to grace the eyes and ears of generations. The ceiling of the Sistine Chapel is just one outflowing of art inspired by Christian faith, expressing in beauty and image the truths that lie at the heart, not only of the Roman Catholic Christian tradition, but of the worldwide Christian communion centred on the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

This post is written before the Bellahouston Mass. I'll blog on that tomorrow, as one who remembers the John Paul II event in 1982, and that remarkable rendering of Our God reigns. How can you not rejoice that thousands of people will be singing Isaiah's good news hymn in a park in Glasgow, in the sunshine, and sensing in themselves the reawakening of a faith and devotion too easily trapped in the tedium of the consumer converyor belt, or exhausted by contemporary anxieties and excesses. And I'm looking forward to hearing the new James MacMillan Mass, words and music made accessible for congregational singing.

16 September 2010
“An Explanation of Everything” – Atheism and Insects Victorian Style

I suppose the argument from design is unlikely to persuade many in the contemporary intellectual climate created by militant atheism, or perhaps atheistic fundamentalism is the better term. The idea (with a long and respected history) is that there are some things that seem so wonderful they plausibly suggest design and designer rather than random occurrence. And that includes the known and acknowledged unknown marvel of a universe like the one we inhabit. I'm waiting for the new book of Hubble space images. While waiting I'm reading other stuff – as I do. Came across the following paragraph from an 1843 pamphlet Instructions for Collecting, Rearing and Preserving British and Foreign Insects. No author indicated. It is the argument from design innocent of the arguments that raged 20 years later on the publication of the Origin of Species. It is so quaintly naive in its assumptions that it is worth reading, if only to recover a sense of that lost innocence that can look and wonder, and give value to that ability to recognise beauty, intricacy and diversity as at least clues to a universe in which meaning is not ruled out as a prior assumption.

The contemplation of the works of the Creator is the highest delight of the rational mind. In them we read, as in a volume fraught with endless wonders, the unlimited power and goodness of that Being who, in the formation of atoms, and of worlds, has alike displayed unfathomable Wisdom. There are few objects in Nature which raise the mind to a higher degree of admiration, than the Insect creation. Their immense numbers – endless variety of form – astonishing metamorphoses – exceeding beauty – the amazing minuteness of some, and the wonderful organization of others, far exceeding that of the higher animals – all tend to prove an Almighty artificer, and inspire astonishment and awe.

That paragraph is likely to inspire quite other responses in Dawkins. Hitchens, Hawking and others. And yes, it no longer sounds self evident. But I wonder if in our intellectual lust for dominance we may have lost the intellectual moderation that comes from wonder, astonishment and awe. Intellectual power without intellectual humility can become intellectual hubris. Whether or not – the above paragraph is a reminder that this wonderful universe is to be gazed at as well as analysed, and thus understood at a deeper level than 'an explanation of everything'.

15 September 2010
Irritability as an approach to Gospel witness?

"The Sermon on the Mount never was, is not, and never can be a private affair. Jesus spoke to all who would hear him….The Christian community is taken to be the salt of the earth and the light of the world in the inbreaking messianic time. Therefore, it is sent into all areas of public life to witness to the promise, as well as to Jesus' claim to all his Father's creatures. There are no longer autonomies in the political, social, economic, cultural, national, and international spheres that at least would not have to be irritated by the gospel. The exposition of the Sermon on the Mount in terms of a private affair is the reaction of an Enlightenment tolerance. It is actually a rejection of the gospel as God's reaching out for his world."

Ernst Kasemann, On Being a Disciple of the Crucified Nazarene, (Page 131)

Not much comment needed – except, how about irritability as a key competence of a Christian community being faithful to the Gospel and engaging with our culture…..hmmmm?

14 September 2010