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  • “An Explanation of Everything” – Atheism and Insects Victorian Style

    ButterflyI 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'.

  • 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?

     

  • Prayer and the Pursuit of Happiness



    Images     Ever since I read Prayer and the Pursuit of Happiness, I have read the work of Richard Harries. Indeed the stained glass window on the front cover became a tapestry project years ago, and it now hangs in my study at the College. What that book did (for me at any rate), was recover a positive view of human happiness as a life goal.

    Sure, it's true enough if you set out looking for happiness you'll be disappointed – sometimes. But it does seem odd that those who are followers of one who was accused of too many parties, too much wine, overindulgence in food (glutton he was accused of, though allow some exaggeration for the zealously pious) keeping the wrong company, saying the wrong thing, doing good and helping people on the wrong days, – yes it does seem odd that Christians often seem ambivalent about happiness. Oh we're OK with joy, you know that deep, subterranean sense of emotional well-being "in the Lord", or that nearer the surface stuff that gets sung out in many a praise song many Sunday.

    But happiness – uncomplicated, desirable, positive, laughter laced, pleasurable enjoyment of things, surface though not superficial, transient but transformative, the feeling in our bodies and minds that the most important word to say to life is yes! But isn't the pursuit of happiness to chase after chimera, to put personal pleasure first, to rely on emotion, mood and feelings rather than convictions, beliefs and spirituality.

    What is a human being's chief end? To glorify God and enjoy God forever.  What would be gratitude to the Creator   – to enjoy created things as the gifts they are, surely? Suppose a friend gives you a gift of your favourite food, or a ticket for the gig you never thought you'd get to? Better not tell them you binned the food as an act of self-denial and love for God – or that you shredded the tickets as a way of strengthening your spiritual muscles! 🙂

    I know. Caricature. But Harries was on to something. The way we are suspicious of sheer pleasure in things; that dominant strand in Christian spirituality that wants us to eliminate personal desires and suppress that part of us from which the words "I want" come. And ambition, love, desire, want, pleasure, leisure, reveling, laughter, – far from diminishing our spirituality, are significant parts of a full humanity without which spirituality impairs rather than enhances, and distorts rather than fulfills.


    Window2 Thomas Traherne, that Creation-intoxicated mystic, is one of the few Christian writers who writes of happiness and enjoyment with unabashed enthusiasm. Actually, reading him out loud he sounds OTT – but maybe one of the reasons we are on the brink of ecological catastrophe is we no longer look on nature as the creation, and on material things as gift, and on the world as a living jewel entrusted to our care, and we are OTT about all the wrong things.

    You never enjoy the world aright, till the Sea itself floweth in your
    veins, till you are clothed with the heavens, and crowned with the
    stars: . . . Till your spirit filleth the whole world, and the stars are
    your jewels; . . . till you love men so as to desire their happiness,
    with a thirst equal to the zeal of your own.

    Prayer and the Pursuit of Happiness is one of those books that simply and directly questions our worldview. And asks whether this side of the resurrection, assuming the love of a faithful Creator, in a world suffused and enlivened by the Holy Spirit, there might just be reason to be happy, and for our happiness to be a grateful yes to God's gifts.

    And sure, there is another kind of world – cruel, unjust, violent and violated, barren of freedom and marred and scarred by greed, waste and misery. But in such a world we are called to live for Jesus Christ, in the power of the Spirit, embodying the reconciling love of God. And surely part of that witness, is also the celebration of that which is good, wholesome, healing, restoring, just, funny, enjoyable – because human happiness, and human desires and human wanting are not wrong.

    Inordinate desire, yes; self-interested wanting that robs others, yes; happiness purchased on others' misery, yes; each of these is nearer the greed that looks on the apple and hears that plausible persuasive question, "Did God say no?" But any reading of the Psalms, any reflection on how Jesus lived, and any honest facing up to what goes on in our own hearts, makes it clear that happiness is a good thing! And good things should be pursued, and shared. And maybe that is the best constraint and control of our wanting and our desiring – the sense of other people, of shared humanity and therefore of shared happiness in this great comi-tragic production we call our lives. Read the words of Traherne again – "to love people so as to desire their happiness, with a thirst equal to the zeal of your own". Or as Jesus said, Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled. Satisfied. Fulfilled, and yes, happy.

  • Emerging Church, Rabbi Gamaliel and the Theological Curriculum

    Quad2wrh Just spent the last couple of days meeting with colleagues in Oxford, at Regent's Park College. We were looking at the issues for theological education arising from the flux and diversity of expression in church community that has come to be called emerging church, or fresh expressions, or whatever catch phrase we care to use in the vain attempt to catch in neat definition this phase of the church's life in contemporary Westernised Christian culture.

    Stuart Murray Williams is one of the central figures trying to interpret, understand and evaluate what is of permanent value and what of transient interest in the plethora of alternatives on offer for those no longer satisfied with 'inherited church' or 'traditional church' or 'mainstream church'. See – even the non emergent status quo is now accruing nuanced definitions! And given the long list of options from cafe church to to Sci Fi church, Post-Alpha church to Cyber church, from menu church to common purse community, it was an important exercise to try somehow to grasp the significance of whatever is happening, in a culture that values the 'whatever' word.

    Not rehearsing it all here, but several really important questions are at least worth posing:

    What is necessary for any group to legitimately claim for itself the word church as a valid descriptor of what it is and how it expresses its life? What is the ecclesial minimum for a group to call itself church?

    How important is sustainability in any of these new developments in Christian mission and community? If it is a transient phase is that necessarily a sign of failure? And if some of these survive and become self-sustaining is that validation, 'if it is of God it will prosper'?

    If a group aim to accommodate a culturally specific group (Goth church for example), how does that relate to the catholicity of the Church? If Christian community is inclusive, how does that square with groups whose nature, aim and identity are so specific and culturally focused that by definition others would find them all but inaccessible?

    If these new and imaginative and creative initiatives are part of a search for a more authentic and participatory way of being Christian community engaged with surrounding culture, what are the criteria for such authenticity?

    Given that fresh expressions of emerging or emergent church are self-consciously developmental, uncontrolled and organic, what is it that nevertheless enables them to define themselves as Christian? Where are the theological and spiritual parameters, and who sets them?

    And the specific question for theological education as formation and preparation for ministry in such a cultural flux – what impact should such developments, and the need to understand them, have on curriculum content, styles of teaching and a theological understanding of ecclesiology and Baptist Identity?

    All good questions – much sharp discussion – several tentative conclusions – and most importantly, food for thought and reason for dialogue.

  • Jesus didn’t say “Hate your enemies” or “Blessed are the violence-makers”

    "The Gainesville, Florida-based Dove World Outreach Centre church calling itself a "New Testament, Charismatic,
    Non-Denominational Church," says it will go ahead with the torching of
    the Koran on Saturday to mark the ninth anniversary of the 2001 attacks
    against the United States. Gainesville authorities have said that will
    contravene fire safety rules."

    See here for more on this astonishing and dangerous nonsense from a group who dare to claim their behaviour has any conceivable connection with New Testament Christianity.

    Their proposed actions have not the remotest congruence with the Holy Spirit whose charismata does not include hatred and incitement

    Nor can their proposed actions carry even the most tenuously, tortuously, tediously argued iota of justification in the teaching and person of Jesus, whose clear command is (if they MUST name Muslim people as enemies), "Love your enemies!" 

    Burning the sacred text of another tradition is thinkable for so called Christians only if:

    • they have already disposed of the Sermon on the Mount as a defining text of the actions and dispositions that reflect the Living Christ
    • and only if they act in direct contravention to all that the cross stands for as the reconciling act of God in Christ
    • and only if they reject the truth of the resurrection – which is that life not death, love not hate, light not darkness, hope not despair, peace not violence, are the true values of the Kingdom of God, and the convictional commitments by which Christians live.

    The US Government, and whole swathes of Amercican people have rightly and strongly condemned the plan, and called on the church not to proceed. In addition to all the other arguments and reasoned protests, one further point. When Jesus said love your enemies he was referring to those we considered enemies or who hated us. In my view, and my reading of the gospels, the Christian response to people of other faiths can never be hatred, and can never use the vocabulary of enmity, not if we are followers of Jesus. The idea that the One who took the scroll of the law to preach the Nazareth Manifesto, can be co-opted as a burner of the sacred book of another faith tradition is ludicrous, the image it conjures, grotesque, the religious message it sends, dis-graceful.

    The name of the Church planning to burn the Koran – mark it well – The Dove World Outreach Centre. The picture below shows what real doves are about.


    Spirit-picasso18

  • Be lifted up ye ancient gates – prayer for a garage door.


    1576871487_01_PT01__SS400_SCLZZZZZZZ_V1140649280_ Yesterday I innocently went to put the bin out.

    Opened the garage door, wheeled the bin to the pavement.

    Came back and pulled the garage door closed and the tension wires snapped.

    Garage door now across my shoulders making me feel like Samson stealing the Gates of Gaza.

    How to tell Sheila who is at the other end of the house with doors shut, probably with the hoover on.

    Neighbour in a hurry mistook my weight-lifting exploits for knowledgeable enterprising can do.

    Before I can tell her to ring our bell, she's in the car and waving cheerio.

    Can see she's well impressed that I'm repairing the door myself while holding it up.

    Tried quoting the Bible, "Lift your heads, you gates. Be lifted you ancient doors."

    Didn't work. Decided not to try the musical version, Ye gates lift up your heads on high.

    By an improvised contortionist act I can just about reach the step ladders with one leg.

    Means standing on one leg still holding up the door.

    The leg in question is the recently referred to leg with the torn corpuscnesium.

    Like those films of prisoners stretching to reach the keys beyond the bars, the extended leg slowly inches towards the step ladders, not quite reaching.

    Just one toe-length more..but to misquote the Sermon on the Mount "who by worrying can add one inch to their leg length"?

    Well me actually!

    Using legs, arms, back, and a number of neologisms and alternative linguistic apellations for doors and ladders, the ladders are maneouvred into position.

    Minutes later, traumatised but triumphant the garage doors are propped up.

    Later the repair man came, rewired it and re-set the spring.

    I watched him do it so that next time…..

  • Christian witness – bespeaking hopefulness to a culture mired in its own despair


    Hope_in_a_prison_of_despair_2pbm Hope. To look to the future as open and replete with new possibility. To see our past and our present circumstances without conceding they determine who we will be, and what is now possible.

    If there's one disposition, one emotion, one word for which our times are sick with hunger, it's hopefulness.


     Are any of us immune to that darkness and heaviness of soul that occasionally descends as we glimpse our own shallowness, sense the superficial transcience of a life lived too rapidly, and long for something more permanent, durable, worth giving our lives to?

    How to bear witness to Jesus who brings freedom in a culture suffering an advanced case of creeping exhaustion through trying to keep the creaking economic machinery going through the cycle of sustainable economic growth, global recession, and economic recovery. Remorselessness engenders hopelessness, and it's no accident that a theology of hope has an umbilical connection to liberation theology.

    And alongside the search for meaning and identity through our capacity to participate in a consumer culture, isn't there something existentially significant about the contemporary pursuit of belonging, identity and connectedness through Facebook, Twitter and yes the blog? 

    One way or another we each try to locate our own living in the excitement and sameness, the creativity and the mess, the valuable and the trivial, the enduring and the disposable, the worthwhile and the wasteful, the optimism and the despair,  that is the cultural flux of our times.

    So I think of some of the great words that bespeak hopefulness. Bespeak – that is speak and make be. Speak into existence. Talk up. Not in the silly sense of make-believe, but in the prophetic sense of re-imagining a world in which hope and not cynicism is the default posture of our forward thinking. For example:

    Amos 9.13, at the end of a doom laden sermon or two:

    The time is surely coming, says the Lord, when the one who plows shall overtake the one who reaps, and the treader of grapes the one who sows the seed; the mountains shall drip sweet wine, and all the hills shall flow with it.

    Isaiah 55.12, as a promise that simply denies to the status quo its claims to permanence and determinism

    You shall go out with joy, and be led forth in peace, and the mountains and the hills before you shall burst into song, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.

    Revelation 22.1-2, one of those texts that Hollywood would need CGI's to do justice, a vision of life and movement, of growth and fulfillment, of international healing and peace. 

    Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the lamb, through the middle of the street of the city. on either side of the river is the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, producing its fruit each month; and the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations.


    150px-Candleburning And the lines from Browning's Paracelsus, Victorian rhetoric and human longing for a future drawn forwardt by the sense that in the murk and darkness we might be a bit like Moses sometimes, and have to draw near to the thick darkness in which god dwells…..

    If I stoop
    Into a dark tremendous sea of cloud,
    It is but for a time. I press God's lamp
    Close to my breast; its splendour, soon or late,
    Will pierce the gloom. I shall emerge one day.

    God is love. God is light. But a Christian understanding of God, standing this side of resurrection, manages to look at a tired, scared, fragmented world, buckling under the strain of human activity, and pray, The God of hope fill you with all hope. It is God who bespeaks the future, not us. Thank goodness, and thank God!


    Irasghost_hst Faith then, is 
    both defiant and imaginative – refusing to concede that how things are
    is how they must be. Instead faith sends out trajectories of hope
    towards a future differently imagined. Not because we can simply wish
    fulfil the future – but because wherever our human future takes us, God
    is already there, and there as eternally creative love, reconciling our
    shattered cosmos, and bringing to completion our own brokenness through
    that same reconciling love.

    The Colossian Christ, the image of the invisible God, the one in whom all things hold together, in whom all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell – there is the core of any theology that claims to be Christian and relevant to a culture mired in its own despair, and apparently hell-bent on foreclosing on its own future. To bear witness to a different future, and live towards that future by a life of peace-making and conciliatory love, and to embody these in actions of generous, gentle, costly healing of whatever is hurting around us, – that is to bespeak hopefulness, is to be the Body of Christ, broken for the nourishment of the world.

    In Christ all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of the cross.

    (The painting is Hope in a Prison of Despair, Evelyn De Morgan, Pre-Raphaelite)

    (The space image above can be found here )

  • Keats, Van Gogh and Autumn

    No need to post the whole poem.  Keats'  Ode to Autumn is accessible on countless sites. But the first verse has to be the most lyrical description of autumn in English literature, and the first line has such precision and evocative power it serves as the classic definition of the season, a six word essay on the ecstasy of nature fulfilled.

    Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness!
    Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;
    Conspiring with him how to load and bless
    With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eaves run;
    To bend with apples the mossed cottage-trees,
    And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;
    To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells
    With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,
    And still more, later flowers for the bees,
    Until they think warm days will never cease,
    For Summer has o'erbrimmed their clammy cells.

    No need to say more. But here's a picture by one of the most nature sensitive human beings ever to put paint on canvas

    VanGogh1

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

    ”… in all nature, for instance in trees, I see expression and soul… ”
    Letter to Theo van Gogh, 5 November 1882

  • Karl Barth and a Qualified Kenosis?

    If then, God is in Christ,

    if what the man Jesus does is God's own work,

    this aspect of the self-emptying and self-humbling of Jesus Christ

    as an act of obedience

    cannot be alien to God.

    But in this case we have to see here

    the other and inner side of the divine nature of Christ

    and therefore of the nature of the one true God –

    that he himself is also able and free to render obedience.

    Church Dogmatics, IV.1 Page 193

    That is as succinct a summary as I know of the theological importance of kenosis as an interpretive category of Christology that derives ultimately from the intra-trinitarian life of God. "Kenosis articulates the act of love revealed in the Word made flesh." Kenosis is not so much an attribute of God as the quality that defines how the attributes of God are expressed in love towards all that is.

  • Jurgen Moltmann – overcoming death and a theology of hope

    Moltmann Moltmann at his rhetoriocal best:

    So we may say that jesus' death on the cross was solitary, and exclusively his death, but his raising from the dead is inclusive, open to the world, and embraces the universe, an event not merely human and historical but cosmic too: the beginning of the new creation of all things.

    With the overcoming of the disciples' crucified hope for the future and the shaken confidence in death of the women at the tomb, the early Christian belief in the resurrection acted in the ancient world like an explosion og hearts and sense. It attacked with elemental force 'the powers iof this world': the power of sin, the inescapability of death, and the hopelessness of hell. The risen Christ became the power of protest against these godless and inhumane forces.

    Jurgen Moltmann, Sun of Righteousness Arise! (London: SCM, 2010) page 55

    Question: Why does this 254 page paperback book cost £25 from SCM, and the soon to be published Divine Humanity by David Brown (on Kenosis) costs £50 paperback for 256 pages. Do the tow ectra pages cost £12.50 each??? I am emailing SCM about this 🙁