Neverland Matrix.
I was once caring for an 8 year old who was critically ill in Intensive Care; Ventilated, on multiple inotropes and on CVVH.
A relative was keeping a vigil by her bed side during the night. In the small hours when everything was quiet we got to talking. He held the young girl's hand and quietly shook his head.
'When I watch TV and I've had enough sadness - I press the doofer and its gone and everything is happy. When I'm fed up with the news and all that stuff I just go...' He mimed pointing a TV remote control. 'One click...', he clacked his tongue, '...and its gone from my life'. He sighed.
'Well... I keep clicking and it is all still here.... it doesn't go away!' he said.
The world as presented by TV is a double illusion. It not only portrays a distorted sense of reality; it also implies a distorted measure of control of that reality. Cocooned from the hardships most humans face daily a viewer drinking deeply in the media well may sincerely believe that 'all is for the best, in the best of all possible worlds'... and if it isn't we can always turn over.
It is only when real reality intervenes that our perspective is reorientated and both those perceptions, a false reality and a phoney sense of control, are shown to be illusions. How many people go through life mired in illusion, thinking that perception is the reality? What does it take to wake people up?
Showing posts with label Post-Modernism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Post-Modernism. Show all posts
Wednesday, May 11, 2011
Monday, April 11, 2011
NIALL FERGUSON, THE PROTESTANT WORK ETHIC AND THE RING OF TRUTH . Last night on Channel 4 we had the final part of historian Niall Ferguson's analysis of "Civilization: Is the West History?" Over the preceding weeks he has pointed to several (what he calls) 'killer apps' which enabled the West to progress in a way that other cultures could not; these included Competition, Science, Medicine and Democracy. Last night we had "the Protestant Work Ethic". I believe that Niall Ferguson is correct in saying that part of the West, that is Europe, has learnt to despise the work ethic while other cultures have embraced it. Do we live to work or work to live? I believe we live to be active and creative. Furthermore he is correct in his observations that the Chinese have more Christians than the whole of Europe! As a European Christian I think that is wonderful! Truly wonderful and a remarkable testimony to the work of the Holy Spirit despite decades of persecution the church there has prospered! Christianity can no longer be perceived as a western phenomena - and quite rightly so - because it never was! In contrast to the USA Europe has sold its share of the Christian heritage for a mess of pottage. As a Christian from Europe I can see the consequences of such a dereliction. Niall Ferguson is perceptive in parts; he alludes to a loss of faith within European society which now requires the affirmation of all beliefs, no matter how crackpot, on the basis that no belief is any better than any other. He has hit the nail on the head there. But his solution is not however a reaffirmation of Protestant Christianity but a renewal of faith in ourselves.... hmmm. The problem there is that Europe has already been engaged in an experiment of substituting faith in God for faith in humanity. At that point, you will realise, that Niall Ferguson has lost the plot of his own argument. There has never been a loss of faith in ourselves! Indeed that faith has always been humankinds fundamental problem. The reality is once one abolishes God one also abolishes Man! What do I mean by that? I will argue that the intellectual environment cultivated by Protestant Christianity (which is shorthand for genuine, biblical, apostolic Christianity) has had a number of positive consequences for society and that when we abolish God and substitute Man in his place negative consequences follow. I will follow up this train of thought in the next couple of months by looking at 'Democracy & the Rule of Law' and 'Science' as attributes of a Christian worldview under a series called 'The Ring of Truth'. But for now I will confine myself to the 'Protestant Work Ethic'. I will add one caveat; Capitalism is not the ultimate goal of the Gospel of Jesus Christ! From his description I do not believe Niall Ferguson really understood the work ethic. Properly understood it is not about living driven lives under the whip hand of God. It is actually about realising that a believer can glorify God in whatever sphere of life they find themselves in. One does not have to become a priest, monk or nun in order to serve God, one can do so whatever one's circumstances if one's attitude is right. The split between the sacred and secular was broken down and different sets of spiritual and moral standards no longer applied... all are equally called. This is what was meant by the Protestant/Biblical concept of "the priesthood of all believers"; which is also a democratising influence but I'll leave that for another day! Why is it particularly a 'Protestant' work ethic? The priesthood of all believers implies a degree of activism, involvment and personal engagement which will be absent in societies which defer to a special priestly caste. I recall a commentator once saying that the difference between north and south America was that in the south the settlers came to find paradise and in the north they came to build it! That has more than a ring of truth about it. Critics of 'religion' will point out that it reduces the believer to helpless passivity. Well, there may be more than a ring of truth to that too. But I will argue that Protestant/Biblical Christianity is the exception which proves the rule. The work ethic founded on the Creation mandate of Genesis is hardly a call to inaction!
Thursday, March 31, 2011
ORIGINAL SIN & THE "BIBLE'S BURIED SECRETS". In the final episode of Dr Francesca Stavrakopoulou's TV series she seeks to locate The Garden of Eden. Her conclusion is that the Adam & Eve story and the account of their subsequent Fall can be traced back to the Temple, Judah's king and the Fall of Jerusalem to the Babylonian Empire in 586bc. I consider myself fairly clued up on Biblical literature and have some familiarity with opposing positions, but I cannot say I have ever heard of this hypothesis before. Of course that doesn't mean it is wrong, just that it is almost certainly wrong. It is very important to say that the drive in academic circles is always to innovate; if you want to make a reputation for yourself in academia you have to find a novel angle. That impetus is not always conducive to conserving what is good. If you want to make a name for yourself some public exposure, controversy and novelty are the name of the game. She said the concept of original sin has had a "devastating" effect on human affairs because it implicated everyone but if the real story relates to one particular king's hubris then humanity can say, as she did, "we are off the hook!" Humanity is innocent of evil. The link between the Garden of Eden and Solomon's Temple seems tenuous - it is just as likely that the garden decoration in the Temple is symbolic of something earlier. But even if one concluded that the Bible we have was largely constructed during the Babylonian exile that does not negate the message. If it is strikingly different from the original source all the more reason to ask 'why?' What are the writers of the Bible getting at? It strikes me that the questions raised by the TV programme always stop short; in so far as the Bible has buried secrets why not dig deeper? I can't help but conclude that the series has an agenda, it isn't difficult to perceive what it is. Smear words like "devastating" when attached to concepts like 'original sin' imply that she has a humanist outlook. Her 'straw man' argument about Eve as the cause of evil imply she has a Feminist agenda. But the real feature of this TV series is Post-Modernism; from Dr Stavrakopoulou's point of view it does not matter what the evidence actually is, it is sufficient that this is true for her. A Post-Modernist does not believe in objective reality and that is dangerous for a historian (as for a scientist!) because then the focus shifts from the external realities to the internal and subjective encounter of how 'I' see it and what it means for 'me' as if somehow our present day self-serving worldview is what this history is primarily about. Given this; it is no wonder that the presenter inserts present day priorities into her historical interpretation. Clearly Dr Stavrakopolou is hostile to the concept of 'original sin' and that informs her historical reconstruction. It is not unreasonable to ask if the Bible has got it so wrong regarding evil what is the correct view? She does not answer that. If evil is something which does not touch us all then who does it touch? It is very easy to 'otherise' human evil by identifying a convenient outgroup who can be demonised while we claim to be totally innocent ourselves. Humanists, Atheists, Feminists and Post-Moderns all have their favoured outgroups - in fact that sort of moral fingerpointing is a major feature of human nature... and 'original sin'! The Christian position, drawn from the Eden story, is unique in that it recognises our own culpability. In the words of Alexander Solzhenitsyn from 'The Gulag Archipelago' "If only there were evil people some where insidiously committing evil deeds and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being."
Saturday, December 11, 2010
"Religion is a Force for Good" - discuss!
In a recent public debate Tony Blair argued in favour of this proposition and Christopher Hitchens against. But much of this so-called discussion, it seems to me, is framed in post-modern language which inevitably predetermines the conclusion. Not surprisingly Christopher Hitchens had the better of the debate while Tony Blair seemed hesitant and defensive.
For example, to discuss "faith" as an abstract condition without any reference as to what that "faith" is in is completely non-sensical. Personally I am often mystified as to what people actually mean when the "faith" word is bandied around like this. This concept of faith as an abstraction is surely a post-modern imposition which invariably skews sensible discussion; it treats "faith" as a personal attribute rather than having an objective focus. The post-modern is more concerned with the journey itself rather the destination because that resolves all discussion about value judgements by internalising them as a matter of personal taste. The post-modern probably thinks he or she is doing you a favour, but by patronising people like this they are actually quite insulting without ever realising it... all because they do not have the conceptual framework to gain any meaningful insight.
The same applies to the "religion" word (barely a Biblical word at all!). The post-modern will lump all "religion" together as if it is an indistinguishable mass; and perhaps to the undiscerning it is. But it is not part of my worldview to endorse all "religion" - far from it. I could not argue that all religion is a force for good... or that even most of it is. In fact such a concept is actually anti-thetical to my belief in Jesus Christ, who made a number of exclusive truth claims.
I wonder why Tony Blair allowed himself to get into a discussion framed in terms which are, in actuality, indefensible! It is like being set up with the "have you stopped beating your wife?" question - there is no good answer!
In a recent public debate Tony Blair argued in favour of this proposition and Christopher Hitchens against. But much of this so-called discussion, it seems to me, is framed in post-modern language which inevitably predetermines the conclusion. Not surprisingly Christopher Hitchens had the better of the debate while Tony Blair seemed hesitant and defensive.
For example, to discuss "faith" as an abstract condition without any reference as to what that "faith" is in is completely non-sensical. Personally I am often mystified as to what people actually mean when the "faith" word is bandied around like this. This concept of faith as an abstraction is surely a post-modern imposition which invariably skews sensible discussion; it treats "faith" as a personal attribute rather than having an objective focus. The post-modern is more concerned with the journey itself rather the destination because that resolves all discussion about value judgements by internalising them as a matter of personal taste. The post-modern probably thinks he or she is doing you a favour, but by patronising people like this they are actually quite insulting without ever realising it... all because they do not have the conceptual framework to gain any meaningful insight.
The same applies to the "religion" word (barely a Biblical word at all!). The post-modern will lump all "religion" together as if it is an indistinguishable mass; and perhaps to the undiscerning it is. But it is not part of my worldview to endorse all "religion" - far from it. I could not argue that all religion is a force for good... or that even most of it is. In fact such a concept is actually anti-thetical to my belief in Jesus Christ, who made a number of exclusive truth claims.
I wonder why Tony Blair allowed himself to get into a discussion framed in terms which are, in actuality, indefensible! It is like being set up with the "have you stopped beating your wife?" question - there is no good answer!
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
"The Dictatorship of Relativism!"
Pope Benedict XVI criticised the post-modern trend toward a form of Moral Relativism which will ultimately render society incapable of formulating any coherent ethical foundation. Without a shared moral basis society will fracture into atomised individuals cut off from each other with only their personal self interest as a guiding principle. Society's capacity to discuss in a meaningful way the issues of the day will be steadily eroded. His point being that in a thoroughly relativised world we will cease to have the ability to have any meaningful public discourse.
The BBC Radio 4 programme "Analysis" attempted to tackle this topic at 9.30pm on Sunday 4th July 2010 under the chairmanship of presenter Ed Stourton.
Among the contributors were Dr Rowan Williams, Ann Widdecombe and Islamic scholar Ruzwan Mohammed who sympathised with the Pope's concern. Their protagonists were Simon Blackburn, Leslie Green & Stephen Wang.
It could have been an interesting programme but the latter group made a very poor showing. It was as if certain philosophical propositions, ie theirs, were taken to be so self evidently true and the alternative so patently false that they didn't need to engage with the discussion at all.
One of the professors of philosophy made the point that just as the Nazis stigmatised Jews so the Pope was doing to Relativists. It struck me that this was a feeble argument and bordered on smear tactics rather than a serious rebuttal of Benedict's philosophical objections. Also; as deplorable as the recent child abuse scandal within the RC Church is, it isn't strictly relevant to this discussion yet that was raised several times. Although I am not a Catholic I do not believe that one can condemn a whole people group for the faults of some. Where the RC Church as an institution has failed it has, albeit belatedly, sought to put its house in order. My point is the protagonists were determined not so much to debate the topic as sneer.
One of them pointed out that we do not live in a relativistic world anyway, people do stop and intervene when they see wrong doing. But I believe this misses the point entirely - yes some do intervene, they still have some moral compass, but it is not uncommon to hear of others walking by and refusing to get involved. There may be many reasons why such people do walk by on the other side of the street but the question being asked is are some doing so because of the pervasive relativistic attitude of "don't judge" & "don't get involved" they have lost their moral compass? It seemed to me that that self evident question was never adequately discussed.
What should have been an interesting discussion was the usual parade of BBC scoffers for whom a serious discussion was beneath their contempt.
Actually- when you think about it - doesn't that prove the point Pope Benedict was attempting to make? We have indeed lost the ability for constructive public discourse. How ironic!
post script; 15th July 2010.
Someone suggested that I should share these comments with the BBC. As a matter of principle for every negative comment I send to the media I try and have two positive comments to share about other programmes. I can't honestly say that the BBC have been very receptive to constructive criticism in my experience. Anyway the on-line comments restrict you to 350 characters (including spaces!) but my comment reads as follows:
Your critics of "Dictatorship of Relativism" made snide comments about the proposition but did not adequately engage in the topic at hand. Either the content was very poorly edited or you need to find better contributors who can properly critique this proposition. Maybe we have indeed lost the capacity for mature public discourse = QED to Benedict!
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
What is "Fairness"?
After the recent World Cup final in which Spain beat The Netherlands the Dutch coach, Bert Van Marwijk, complained that the referee was clearly biased against them because the ref had given far more 'yellow cards' against the Dutch compared to the Spanish.
At face value this is clearly true - the Netherlands team did indeed have a disproportionate number of bookings compared to their rivals and this raises the issue of "fairness" and what we mean by the word.
One of the earliest moral debates children raise is the question of how 'fair' or 'unfair' something is, and we all naturally assume we know what we mean by being 'fair'. Politicians use the word 'fairness' regularly. But what do we all mean the same thing?
If we apply a simplistic statistical model to the Spain v Netherlands game then clearly the referee was biased against the Dutch. And the logical solution would be to issue bookings on an equitable basis - a statistical model would require a simple 50-50 split. If we did this then the statistics would demonstrate 'equality', which in modern thinking is synonymous with 'fairness'.
However a "retributive" understanding of 'fairness' would apportion bookings according to the offence whoever committed them or whatever "statistical anomaly" arose.
Clearly in Marwijk's opinion the statistics settle the matter. All I can say to that is 'what a travesty of justice he would seek to impose on any sporting nation - it is shameful that anyone should seek to justify their team's disgraceful performance on this basis! Shame on you!'
Shame on you!
Provided the same rule applies to all 'without fear or favour' then we have 'fairness', the rule of law and at least a partial understanding of what The Bible calls justice.
After the recent World Cup final in which Spain beat The Netherlands the Dutch coach, Bert Van Marwijk, complained that the referee was clearly biased against them because the ref had given far more 'yellow cards' against the Dutch compared to the Spanish.
At face value this is clearly true - the Netherlands team did indeed have a disproportionate number of bookings compared to their rivals and this raises the issue of "fairness" and what we mean by the word.
One of the earliest moral debates children raise is the question of how 'fair' or 'unfair' something is, and we all naturally assume we know what we mean by being 'fair'. Politicians use the word 'fairness' regularly. But what do we all mean the same thing?
If we apply a simplistic statistical model to the Spain v Netherlands game then clearly the referee was biased against the Dutch. And the logical solution would be to issue bookings on an equitable basis - a statistical model would require a simple 50-50 split. If we did this then the statistics would demonstrate 'equality', which in modern thinking is synonymous with 'fairness'.
However a "retributive" understanding of 'fairness' would apportion bookings according to the offence whoever committed them or whatever "statistical anomaly" arose.
Clearly in Marwijk's opinion the statistics settle the matter. All I can say to that is 'what a travesty of justice he would seek to impose on any sporting nation - it is shameful that anyone should seek to justify their team's disgraceful performance on this basis! Shame on you!'
Shame on you!
Provided the same rule applies to all 'without fear or favour' then we have 'fairness', the rule of law and at least a partial understanding of what The Bible calls justice.
Friday, March 06, 2009
"The Shack" by Wm Paul Youngis a surprise bestseller and is doing the rounds within Christian circles, often hailed as a modern day "Pilgrim's Progress" no less!
It is "notoriously difficult to write a good review about a bad book" and I appreciate that this particular book has touched a lot of peoples' hearts. But I believe that they have not so much had an encounter with God but with a candy floss deity who reflects our own post modern values back to us.
The embittered hero, Mack, is invited to meet with God in "The Shack" which is where his young daughter was murdered several years previously. He encounters God in a variety of incarnations and is profoundly changed as a consequence. In my opinion, while the book does contain the odd nugget of gold (more ably expressed elsewhere) it is in truth a sentimental journey into the sort of God our age craves. As such it says much more about ourselves than it ever reveals about God.
This God is so respectful of human rights that he would never violate them; he refuses power because that is coercive by definition. (The Church is a power structure - of course!) God so loves mankind and respects its independence so much he limits himself against any responsibility for events, to interfere would be a denial of love. Given the book's plot presumably God is too loving to intervene to rescue the young daughter. (The problem of evil is not so easily answered!) I would imagine most grieving parents would rather God was a bit less 'respectful' and a bit more intervening. Either way the hero seems satisfied with this as an explanation. Indeed why should Shack-God intervene anyway? The God of The Shack isn't even vaguely disappointed with anyone because S/he has no 'expectations of humanity only expectancy' whatever that means! Presumably Shack-God is not even disappointed with the serial killer!
The God of The Shack will not judge sin (if there is such a thing) because 'it is its own punishment'. I don't see in the book how this principle is worked out in the life of the child's murderer. And it is a curious fact that the author concludes the novel by having the serial killer caught and imprisoned. When push comes to shove we all actually crave some sort of justice. We do want God to be angry when cruelty and evil are encountered: in fact it would be amoral if He wasn't angry. Shack-God never gets angry. We all know that the axiom of sin being its own punishment doesn't work in the real world and the author knows it too otherwise the book's conclusion would have been different. Again doesn't this reflect our society's conflicted view of sin? We want justice but we are not prepared to take the responsibility of making a judgment; we have a 'don't get involved' and 'don't be judgmental' approach to situations. Our post-modern world makes a virtue out of not caring and Shack-God's respectful 'hands off' approach to Mankind is in reality indifference by another name. Thank God Jesus did not look on the world with "benign neglect"!
In Shack-world there is no concept of sin or evil - it seems that being 'messed up' emotionally is the closest we ever get to it. We are somehow the victims of our circumstances. In this context forgiveness is a self-help therapy to get over those who have hurt us: forgiveness is never something of which we are in need of course. Which means that sin (in so far as it exists at all) is never a description of ourselves but always of someone other than us. Well, The Shack isn't exactly breaking new ground there is it? Everyone "otherises" evil don't they?
The Shack has no Cross. At the heart of the Christian faith is the Cross which reveals how God demonstrates his love for us; at the Cross His perfect love as expressed by his outrage at evil is reconciled with His perfect love as expressed in mercy.
The Shack is a cross-less christianity and consequently it is also graceless. There is a poor understanding of sin (which is odd given the occasion for this divine encounter!) and there is no concept of God's holiness. In the Bible when people encounter God they are profoundly shaken by His prescence. They are deeply conscious of their own unworthiness and are awed by God and are changed as a consequence. But this is not the God the world - or even some Christians - feel is marketable.
Mack's wife, Nan, is mentioned tangentially as a nurse who works on a cancer ward and who, as a Christian, has written about the subject of 'suffering'. I would have been curious to know how her theology held up under the pain she was feeling and, indeed, how Mack related to her spiritual understanding. That might have been a segue into the pastoral issues surrounding evil, suffering and redemption but it wasn't a path the book took us down.
As I said earlier; this book reflects our own sorry age, God is reduced to a therapeutic agent for those of us who recognise that we are 'messed up'. Was it my imagination or does Shack-God keep using the catch-phrase of Dr Phil McGraw "how's that working for you?" as the hero's behaviour is put under the spot light? Please don't get me wrong; I like "Dr Phil" (a US TV psychiatrist) I just don't think our model of God should be drawn from day-time TV.
At one point in the book Mack is reassured that the murdered daughter isn't really out of his family's life because they will continue to encounter her in their dreams! This is only one example of the cloyingly sentimental approach of the author. It is a gooey, sticky, candy floss God we encounter here, all sweetness and no substance. It is not a book I would give to any grieving parent.
The book's advocates promise an exploration of evil and redemption, it promises much and delivers little.... what we actually encounter is a godless deity who incarnates our society's value system.
Monday, December 17, 2007
NURSING - IN SEARCH OF IDENTITY.
Imagine the scene. It is a busy ward in a large teaching hospital. A patient has collapsed, is unresponsive, there is no pulse. A "Crash Call" goes out. The nurses start cardiac massage. The 'resus' trolley is wheeled up, the de-fib fetched. The 'Crash Team' come running up the corridor. Cannula inserted, nervous fingers snap open ampoules. Adrenaline, Calcium, DC shock. No output. As the drama unfolds a nurse steps forward and commences massage - not cardiac massage but foot massage.
In the ensuing exchange of conversation with the Senior Registrar, the nurse asserts that as a practitioner in Reflexology she alone is treating the patient's underlying disease, all the rest were merely treating symptoms. Sounds far-fetched? I'm reliably informed that this very scenario was played out in a London hospital recently. It invites the question, "What's going on in society in general and nursing in particular?"
There is a sea change at work in our culture. For three centuries or more the prevailing philosophy within western culture has been modernism. This emphasised the human intellect and the scientific, technological, rational approach to life. It is a materialist philosophy, rejecting any notion of the spiritual. Such a world-view questions the existence of a Creator and asserts that everything can be explained in secular and reductionistic terms.
Most of us will have had contact with some institution of higher education. Within these academic circles, modernism is the over-arching belief system. Until recently this has been the influence that has helped shape Medicine and Nursing as we know them, particularly as they move away from their earlier Christian roots. But now we are witnessing a sea-change. So while once-upon-a-time the general public showed great respect and deference to scientific experts, now attitudes are changing. People are more likely to question, probe and doubt the words of scientists. Indeed, whereas once science was viewed as mankind's hope for a better future, now people are more likely to blame it and the technology it has spawned for causing more problems than it has solved. The belief in inevitable progress is defunct.
This tendency occurring in society as a whole is magnified with nursing. Nursing as a profession is currently seeking to discover an identity of it's own, one that will make it distinctive from Medicine. In my view nurses will inevitably turn to alternative forms of medicine simply because they are alternative. The emerging 'post-modernist' nurse will emphasise the emotional, the intuitive and the holistic, as opposed to the rational, objective, quantifiable and material. As a thorough-going pluralist, the new nurse will accept that there are many different points of view about everything, all of which are equally valid. Indeed any "truth claim" is by definition coercive and domineering, aimed at forcing others to conform to someone else's version of the truth. In this context it is not surprising that an article in the Nursing Times last year urges nurses to avoid making moral judgements if one is asked to obtain the services of a prostitute for a client.
Although Christians have never felt entirely comfortable within modernist professions which denied the spiritual, Christians could at least work within Nursing and Medicine, appreciating the benefits of science but recognising that it did not present a complete picture of what it is to be human. Now, however, we are increasingly being faced not with a denial of spirituality, but with alternative spiritualities often dressed up as complementary therapy. It is easy to feel threatened and overwhelmed by the challenge that faces us at the start of the twenty-first century. I suspect that within Nursing, we will continue to see an on-going tussle between two opposing schools of thought, the post-modernist and a reactive modernist rear-guard action.
These are not easy times for Christians. And yet this situation presents Christians with an opportunity. "Spirituality" is on the agenda, and as Christian nurses we will need to prayerfully consider how best to use these new opportunities. Like the modernist, we too believe in objective truth and that it is knowable. But at the same time we appreciate the limitations of human knowledge and that to be human cannot be fully explained in purely material terms. The spirituality we would profess is one of dependence upon God, rather than one which depends on us manipulating real or supposed spiritual forces.
This article was first published in the Spring 2001 issue of "TRIPLE HELIX" and is reproduced here with the kind permission of the Christian Medical Fellowship.
Imagine the scene. It is a busy ward in a large teaching hospital. A patient has collapsed, is unresponsive, there is no pulse. A "Crash Call" goes out. The nurses start cardiac massage. The 'resus' trolley is wheeled up, the de-fib fetched. The 'Crash Team' come running up the corridor. Cannula inserted, nervous fingers snap open ampoules. Adrenaline, Calcium, DC shock. No output. As the drama unfolds a nurse steps forward and commences massage - not cardiac massage but foot massage.
In the ensuing exchange of conversation with the Senior Registrar, the nurse asserts that as a practitioner in Reflexology she alone is treating the patient's underlying disease, all the rest were merely treating symptoms. Sounds far-fetched? I'm reliably informed that this very scenario was played out in a London hospital recently. It invites the question, "What's going on in society in general and nursing in particular?"
There is a sea change at work in our culture. For three centuries or more the prevailing philosophy within western culture has been modernism. This emphasised the human intellect and the scientific, technological, rational approach to life. It is a materialist philosophy, rejecting any notion of the spiritual. Such a world-view questions the existence of a Creator and asserts that everything can be explained in secular and reductionistic terms.
Most of us will have had contact with some institution of higher education. Within these academic circles, modernism is the over-arching belief system. Until recently this has been the influence that has helped shape Medicine and Nursing as we know them, particularly as they move away from their earlier Christian roots. But now we are witnessing a sea-change. So while once-upon-a-time the general public showed great respect and deference to scientific experts, now attitudes are changing. People are more likely to question, probe and doubt the words of scientists. Indeed, whereas once science was viewed as mankind's hope for a better future, now people are more likely to blame it and the technology it has spawned for causing more problems than it has solved. The belief in inevitable progress is defunct.
This tendency occurring in society as a whole is magnified with nursing. Nursing as a profession is currently seeking to discover an identity of it's own, one that will make it distinctive from Medicine. In my view nurses will inevitably turn to alternative forms of medicine simply because they are alternative. The emerging 'post-modernist' nurse will emphasise the emotional, the intuitive and the holistic, as opposed to the rational, objective, quantifiable and material. As a thorough-going pluralist, the new nurse will accept that there are many different points of view about everything, all of which are equally valid. Indeed any "truth claim" is by definition coercive and domineering, aimed at forcing others to conform to someone else's version of the truth. In this context it is not surprising that an article in the Nursing Times last year urges nurses to avoid making moral judgements if one is asked to obtain the services of a prostitute for a client.
Although Christians have never felt entirely comfortable within modernist professions which denied the spiritual, Christians could at least work within Nursing and Medicine, appreciating the benefits of science but recognising that it did not present a complete picture of what it is to be human. Now, however, we are increasingly being faced not with a denial of spirituality, but with alternative spiritualities often dressed up as complementary therapy. It is easy to feel threatened and overwhelmed by the challenge that faces us at the start of the twenty-first century. I suspect that within Nursing, we will continue to see an on-going tussle between two opposing schools of thought, the post-modernist and a reactive modernist rear-guard action.
These are not easy times for Christians. And yet this situation presents Christians with an opportunity. "Spirituality" is on the agenda, and as Christian nurses we will need to prayerfully consider how best to use these new opportunities. Like the modernist, we too believe in objective truth and that it is knowable. But at the same time we appreciate the limitations of human knowledge and that to be human cannot be fully explained in purely material terms. The spirituality we would profess is one of dependence upon God, rather than one which depends on us manipulating real or supposed spiritual forces.
This article was first published in the Spring 2001 issue of "TRIPLE HELIX" and is reproduced here with the kind permission of the Christian Medical Fellowship.
Monday, October 22, 2007
I'm Baffled by Brian D McLaren
& Steve Chalke.
I've recently finished reading a couple of books by putative leaders of the "emerging (or emergent) church" movement. Brian D McLaren's "The Secret Message of Jesus" and Steve Chalke's "The Lost Message of Jesus". I wanted to know more about this movement and rather than rely on secondhand accounts I thought I'd better go to the source and see what they had to say for themselves.
I have to say that I am not a little baffled by their books. I don't understand why anyone thinks they are breaking new ground because there is nothing original in either book.
I found very little to disagree with for the first hundred pages or so with these books. There are some ungainly phrases which are open to misinterpretation but I appreciate that these books are 'pop theology' and are not meant for serious analysis; even so it would be better to get the basics right. Also, we all have anecdotal horror stories about churches we've encountered - the real issue is how far can one generalise from them without perpetrating an injustice oneself?!
All the criticisms they make of contemporary Evangelicalism are ones I would echo - not least because I've been guilty of them myself! There is indeed a tendency toward pharasaism in Evangelicalism, no-one is denying that. "Works" based 'religion' is the natural default setting of all human beings after all. Consequently it should come as no surprise to find a 'formal evangelicalism' which is actually no better than any other of the world's religions! Only an understanding of 'Grace' will cure this - and that is a unique feature of the Gospel.... and it is something so wonderful it is difficult for us to grasp, even when one has been in the faith for over thirty years like me. However the danger inherent within a movement which seeks to create a 'new' church by its own lights is that it merely creates a new pharisaism with all the elitist presumptions of 'superiority'. That is the lesson of history with all supposedly radical church movements.... they're never as radical as they suppose themselves to be! I know because I've been there before!
I suppose the major point of departure comes when Steve Chalke starts to discuss the Cross of Christ. First of all let me say that I do not recognise his caricature of this doctrine so I won't take offence at it.... he is attacking someone but it can't be me! The fact that he talks about it being "morally dubious" and is antithetical to the notion of a God of Love is one attack too far and is worthy of a response, I cannot let that go unanswered
I believe that if God takes on himself a penalty rightly due to me - there is no inconsistency with his nature as a God of love. I am speaking as a Trinitarian Christian you understand.... Christ is not something outside of God... it is God himself who takes on himself the penalty rightly due to me - isn't that an act of love?!
Also - it is very important to realise - that love is not only about mercy. Isn't love about justice too. Is it loving to let all the world's injustices go with a 'it doesn't matter' shrug of the shoulders? (Auschwitz, Cambodia, Bosnia, Darfur etc or the social ills closer to home. In the course of time these examples will appear dated and quaint - the future reader will (I am sure) be able to substitute your own contemporary examples!) Doesn't love ever get passionate about wrongdoing - and if so how do you think that that is expressed? And if I count myself amongst the evil (rather than the self righteous) what is my escape - assuming I need to escape? How do I pay for the things I've done wrong? If I conclude that I cannot do this can I trust someone else to do it for me?
You might ask 'How can one person pay a penalty for someone else?' I was with my brother-in-law when we drove into a 'pay & display' car park. (I don't mean to be trivial when I use this as an example - I am merely demonstrating that these concepts are not 'rocket science'). He queued to get the ticket while I stood nearby. He realised that he had no coins for the machine and called to me. Yes, I had the right change and paid what he could not. No-one, but no-one, in that queue that day said "Hey! You can't do that!" Incidentally no-one, but no-one said "If you pay for him you have to pay for us all!"
Too often we draw in our own culture into our interpretation of the Bible and I believe Chalke is thinking in terms of modern criminal law when the better model is civil law... CS lewis made this very point over fifty years ago. The "dubious morality" charge is actually bound up in an unstated modernistic presumption of "equity" - the dubious notion that no distinction can ever be made about anybody for any reason. There is no issue here which demands the redrafting of classical protestant doctrine which seems to be the end point Chalke is driving toward. The real issue is this - how far do we go along the road of accepting the world's theology in order to curry favour? And what do we acheive thereby?
At one point Chalke relates how a friend had asked a group of scholars and ministers for a simple one sentence definition of the Jesus' message - nothing satisfactory emerged from the discussion. This is a rather revealing tale.... but not for the reason he thinks. The phrasing of the question imposed a false presupposition that the message of Jesus is somehow different to what Jesus came to do. No wonder people were confused.... and that should tell you something. The message of Jesus is 'the good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep'. Jesus did not come to deliver a word from God but to be The Word! Surely someone would think to say something like "for Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring [us] to God" 1 Peter 3 v18? I thought about what Steve Chalke wrote and it occurs to me that maybe the people his friend had asked don't believe in penal substitution either (or weren't prepared to own up to it in his prescence) and when you think about Chalke's challenge from that perspective how DO you define the Gospel sans 'penal substitution'? I'd be stumped too!
As for Brian D McLaren I had no real issue with his book (outside the general comments above) until the appendices! Entitled "Why didn't we get it sooner?" I was baffled and scribbled in the margin -"but you haven't said anything original!" (Even the stuff that was wrong wasn't new!) It is not a little arrogant to presume that you are the first person to point out the inconsistencies of the evangelical church with the Gospel we proclaim. Carl Henry did this over sixty years ago - and I bet he wasn't the first. If you review my blog you will find much the same stuff here. In fact, quite coincidentally, my home church is currently running a series of lunch time talks on the subject "RSVP - Jesus unveils Heaven's surprising guest list" - with individual talks on 'Jesus is anti-pride', 'Jesus is anti-religion' and 'Jesus is pro-outcast'.* I haven't heard the earlier talks or even know who the speaker is; but I'm prepared to bet everyone out there in blogworld 100 to 1 that all the issues dear to McLaren & Chalke will be addressed there.... as they always have been from faithful Bible teaching churches the world over. It makes you wonder what circles McLaren & Chalke move in.
It maybe the case that McLaren & Chalke have led relatively sheltered Christian lives and ministries within triumphalist and separationist churches for whom this sort of cultural engagement was alien and whose corporate lives were marked by unreality; it is only now that they are reacting against these attitudes. They have some, perhaps many, cogent criticisms to make of evangelical practice - but it will not be the first time that well-meaning men have allowed their enthusiasm for their particular hobby horse to get the better of their judgement.
Recommended further reading: "Becoming Conversant with the Emerging Church" by Don Carson.
Recommended audio: Tim Keller who spoke at the Evangelical Ministers Assembly 2007 on the theme "Defining Times: What is an Evangelical?" Available from Proclamation Trust at http://www.proctrust.org.uk/
& Steve Chalke.
I've recently finished reading a couple of books by putative leaders of the "emerging (or emergent) church" movement. Brian D McLaren's "The Secret Message of Jesus" and Steve Chalke's "The Lost Message of Jesus". I wanted to know more about this movement and rather than rely on secondhand accounts I thought I'd better go to the source and see what they had to say for themselves.
I have to say that I am not a little baffled by their books. I don't understand why anyone thinks they are breaking new ground because there is nothing original in either book.
I found very little to disagree with for the first hundred pages or so with these books. There are some ungainly phrases which are open to misinterpretation but I appreciate that these books are 'pop theology' and are not meant for serious analysis; even so it would be better to get the basics right. Also, we all have anecdotal horror stories about churches we've encountered - the real issue is how far can one generalise from them without perpetrating an injustice oneself?!
All the criticisms they make of contemporary Evangelicalism are ones I would echo - not least because I've been guilty of them myself! There is indeed a tendency toward pharasaism in Evangelicalism, no-one is denying that. "Works" based 'religion' is the natural default setting of all human beings after all. Consequently it should come as no surprise to find a 'formal evangelicalism' which is actually no better than any other of the world's religions! Only an understanding of 'Grace' will cure this - and that is a unique feature of the Gospel.... and it is something so wonderful it is difficult for us to grasp, even when one has been in the faith for over thirty years like me. However the danger inherent within a movement which seeks to create a 'new' church by its own lights is that it merely creates a new pharisaism with all the elitist presumptions of 'superiority'. That is the lesson of history with all supposedly radical church movements.... they're never as radical as they suppose themselves to be! I know because I've been there before!
I suppose the major point of departure comes when Steve Chalke starts to discuss the Cross of Christ. First of all let me say that I do not recognise his caricature of this doctrine so I won't take offence at it.... he is attacking someone but it can't be me! The fact that he talks about it being "morally dubious" and is antithetical to the notion of a God of Love is one attack too far and is worthy of a response, I cannot let that go unanswered
I believe that if God takes on himself a penalty rightly due to me - there is no inconsistency with his nature as a God of love. I am speaking as a Trinitarian Christian you understand.... Christ is not something outside of God... it is God himself who takes on himself the penalty rightly due to me - isn't that an act of love?!
Also - it is very important to realise - that love is not only about mercy. Isn't love about justice too. Is it loving to let all the world's injustices go with a 'it doesn't matter' shrug of the shoulders? (Auschwitz, Cambodia, Bosnia, Darfur etc or the social ills closer to home. In the course of time these examples will appear dated and quaint - the future reader will (I am sure) be able to substitute your own contemporary examples!) Doesn't love ever get passionate about wrongdoing - and if so how do you think that that is expressed? And if I count myself amongst the evil (rather than the self righteous) what is my escape - assuming I need to escape? How do I pay for the things I've done wrong? If I conclude that I cannot do this can I trust someone else to do it for me?
You might ask 'How can one person pay a penalty for someone else?' I was with my brother-in-law when we drove into a 'pay & display' car park. (I don't mean to be trivial when I use this as an example - I am merely demonstrating that these concepts are not 'rocket science'). He queued to get the ticket while I stood nearby. He realised that he had no coins for the machine and called to me. Yes, I had the right change and paid what he could not. No-one, but no-one, in that queue that day said "Hey! You can't do that!" Incidentally no-one, but no-one said "If you pay for him you have to pay for us all!"
Too often we draw in our own culture into our interpretation of the Bible and I believe Chalke is thinking in terms of modern criminal law when the better model is civil law... CS lewis made this very point over fifty years ago. The "dubious morality" charge is actually bound up in an unstated modernistic presumption of "equity" - the dubious notion that no distinction can ever be made about anybody for any reason. There is no issue here which demands the redrafting of classical protestant doctrine which seems to be the end point Chalke is driving toward. The real issue is this - how far do we go along the road of accepting the world's theology in order to curry favour? And what do we acheive thereby?
At one point Chalke relates how a friend had asked a group of scholars and ministers for a simple one sentence definition of the Jesus' message - nothing satisfactory emerged from the discussion. This is a rather revealing tale.... but not for the reason he thinks. The phrasing of the question imposed a false presupposition that the message of Jesus is somehow different to what Jesus came to do. No wonder people were confused.... and that should tell you something. The message of Jesus is 'the good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep'. Jesus did not come to deliver a word from God but to be The Word! Surely someone would think to say something like "for Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring [us] to God" 1 Peter 3 v18? I thought about what Steve Chalke wrote and it occurs to me that maybe the people his friend had asked don't believe in penal substitution either (or weren't prepared to own up to it in his prescence) and when you think about Chalke's challenge from that perspective how DO you define the Gospel sans 'penal substitution'? I'd be stumped too!
As for Brian D McLaren I had no real issue with his book (outside the general comments above) until the appendices! Entitled "Why didn't we get it sooner?" I was baffled and scribbled in the margin -"but you haven't said anything original!" (Even the stuff that was wrong wasn't new!) It is not a little arrogant to presume that you are the first person to point out the inconsistencies of the evangelical church with the Gospel we proclaim. Carl Henry did this over sixty years ago - and I bet he wasn't the first. If you review my blog you will find much the same stuff here. In fact, quite coincidentally, my home church is currently running a series of lunch time talks on the subject "RSVP - Jesus unveils Heaven's surprising guest list" - with individual talks on 'Jesus is anti-pride', 'Jesus is anti-religion' and 'Jesus is pro-outcast'.* I haven't heard the earlier talks or even know who the speaker is; but I'm prepared to bet everyone out there in blogworld 100 to 1 that all the issues dear to McLaren & Chalke will be addressed there.... as they always have been from faithful Bible teaching churches the world over. It makes you wonder what circles McLaren & Chalke move in.
It maybe the case that McLaren & Chalke have led relatively sheltered Christian lives and ministries within triumphalist and separationist churches for whom this sort of cultural engagement was alien and whose corporate lives were marked by unreality; it is only now that they are reacting against these attitudes. They have some, perhaps many, cogent criticisms to make of evangelical practice - but it will not be the first time that well-meaning men have allowed their enthusiasm for their particular hobby horse to get the better of their judgement.
Recommended further reading: "Becoming Conversant with the Emerging Church" by Don Carson.
Recommended audio: Tim Keller who spoke at the Evangelical Ministers Assembly 2007 on the theme "Defining Times: What is an Evangelical?" Available from Proclamation Trust at http://www.proctrust.org.uk/
* No doubt these talks will be available from St Helen's Media in due course.
Thursday, September 20, 2007
The WAGES of SYNTACTICAL ANALYSIS.
This is a follow-up article to an earlier post relating my experiences in "Youth With A Mission" (YWAM) in this mid 1980's. After my "Discipleship Training School" (DTS) in 1985 I had returned home to Yorkshire for a couple of years, but in 1987 (almost exactly twenty years ago) I went back to YWAM to do a year-long "School of Biblical Studies" (SBS) at The King's Lodge, near Nuneaton, in Warwickshire. At the time I still regarded myself as a Charismatic Christian but the glaring lesson from my DTS was just how disasterous it is to cut loose from the anchor of God's Word. The DTS implied (as did the wider charismatic movement) that Bible study was somehow dangerously 'cerebral' and therefore 'unspiritual': the stress they had laid on the experiential failed to grasp the obvious point that even "experiences" require some sort of interpretation: no end of authoritative pronouncements were made on the strength of leaders' supposed experiences and without the checks and balances of God's Word the leaders' own subjective "anointing" became an unimpeachable authority. I recall meeting one of the leading lights of the housechurch movement in the UK who, although he had been invited to speak about Jesus, actually spoke only about himself! But when you think about it - if you exalt the experiential at the expense of propositional teaching you have only your own self reverential ego to refer to. To faithfully teach Christ - a real person in space and time - you must preach because you can only convey who He is and what He did in world history by using words and propositions (you can no more communicate this wordlessly than you can convey anything meaningful about The Battle of The Somme without using words!) Nor can you model Christ adequately because what He did at The Cross was utterly unique!
Most (but not all) of the Charismatic leaders I had met over the years fostered a self referential arrogance I couldn't buy into and it made me want to learn more about the Bible..... not as an academic exercise, but because it was about the Lord Jesus - I loved Him and wanted to know all about Him! Of course even in this I couldn't claim to be without some mixed motives - I also supposed that I had some sort of "ministry" inside me waiting to be 'discovered' and 'recognised' (that was modelled to me). Maybe I even fancied myself as one of God's 'great ones' too - but that is probably a conceit common to young men like myself as I was at the time! So it was with these thoughts in mind that I signed up for the School of Biblical Studies.
The "SBS" was led by a quiet American called Charlie Bassett who exemplified the ideal Bible Study leader's attitude "pass the ball, don't strike at goal!" ie help others see for themselves what the Bible teaches. The 'big idea' of the SBS was called 'Inductive Bible Study' - students were encouraged to read the Bible for themselves without any preconceived ideas - it was wonderfully liberating. All questions and opinions were open for discussion unlike on the DTS two years earlier which was not as freeing as its advocates fondly thought. Quite how easily the SBS sat with the other YWAM courses I'm not entirely sure. During my time at The King's Lodge there was a DTS and a "Biblical Counselling Course" running and the members of the various groups might share thoughts over coffee about what we had all been learning and, I have to say, some of the ideas current on these other courses were a bit "iffy". Reading between the lines I think that some senior YWAM leaders had given the SBS their support because they realised that YWAM was acquiring a reputation for promoting unbiblical beliefs and some were keen to reassert basic Gospel teaching. Others in the leadership, I suspect, viewed the SBS as divisive (as if all these other teachings weren't!)
Until I did the SBS I had always read the Bible "in the flat", treating each verse as applicable to me; and I always used to put myself at the heart of the text. Maybe its a 'man thing' but I would identify myself with, for example, David fighting Goliath but what I now realised was that this is wrongly positioning myself within the text; if I was in that scenario at all it was among the quivering Israelite army who needed a champion to fight on their behalf! Another way of reading the Bible "in the flat" is to treat each verse as if it was a 'stand alone' aphorism. The SBS woke me up to the need to read those verses in context and to be sensitive to the genre of the particular literature I was reading. It was a 'revelation' to me, no pun intended! My experience of reading the Bible prior to this was like reading my way through a jumble of meaningless words and ideas occassionally stumbling upon a purple passage which I invariably felt I understood. After the SBS I realise just how important it all is and now I have a better idea of what those purple passages actually mean!
The biggest shock to me as a Charismatic Christian, as I was then, was when we read the Book of Acts and the penny dropped about "The Baptism of the Holy Spirit". I had previously just lifted what happened in Acts and applied it to me without any regard to what the author of Acts was aiming to communicate. The reality is "The Baptism of the Spirit" occured as new people groups were included within the people of God: as the church expanded geographically following the structure of the book (see Acts 1 v8), each expansion was endorsed by the Holy Spirit. For us after Acts looking back on these events it seems the Baptism of the Spirit occurs when we become part of God's people when we are 'born again'. The Word had challenged my long held belief that there was a two stage message - a Gospel message for sinners and a 'second blessing' message for believers. Bible Study is always most exciting when it challenges our preconceived ideas. The irony is that it was a Charismatic group which caused me to adopt an Evangelical position on the 'Second Blessing'!
This realisation was actually very important because it also made me realise that the Gospel is not a portal through which a Christian then progresses onto some 'higher', 'deeper' or 'more abundant life' teaching - I realised something revolutionary; the Gospel is the Christian life! If you are at the North Pole you cannot go any further North; any so-called step "forward" will take you South! Most of my Christian life upto that point was obsessed with 'moving on' and now I realised it was because I had not yet even remotely begun to understand the implications of the Gospel itself! It is more than a mere entry point. 'Higher ', 'deeper' or 'more abundant life' teaching will inevitably and subtly take us into elitism, where we feel we are a cut above the common clay. The cosey triumphalism which passes for modern day Evangelicalism (which I had always found cloyingly sentimental and unreal) assumes that the Christian is above (or ought to be above) the common experiences of mankind. Yet as I read the Bible all the great issues in life are there, death, evil, failure, suffering, justice, hope, redemption and grace - "life, the universe & everything" are all laid bare.... with total honesty.
I could mention how our study of the Book of Revelation was staggering - I have rarely ever been so encouraged by a book: suffice to say that we let the structure of the book itself help inform how the text should be read.... a repeating cycle of seven, written in the apocalyptic genre. Those Evangelicals who take their theology from pulp paperback prophecy have completely lost the plot on this book, sorry but there really isn't a kind way to say it! (If you want to, check out my posts tagged Revelation - I won't repeat myself here). Besides Charlie Bassett we had some visiting speakers including a South African called Dr Bennie Wolvaardt who taught us how to really look at the Bible text with a series of talks on 'syntactical analysis'. I know this sounds terribly highbrow but basically it is about following the line of an argument, which is especially important in the epistles. Those 'stand alone' Bible verses will trip us up if we cannot set them in their rightful place in the flow of the author's thoughts.
After the SBS concluded in the Summer of 1988 a handful of us went on to the newly acquired YWAM base at Highfield Oval in Harpenden to learn about preaching and teaching for six weeks. Bennie organised and led this phase. After a year studying the Bible I had come to realise that I was not the man I supposed myself to be; the Word of God had held a mirror up to my face and revealed a face I don't show anyone - that's how I know it's true! - I was not one of God's 'great ones' after all. I returned home, did a course in paediatric nursing at St James' Hospital in Leeds and worked on a children's oncology ward there for a year. I had joined a charismatic church in the meantime but the harsh realities of a children's cancer ward don't sit easily with the sentimental triumphalism of charismatic christianity. The glib answers and unreality of this fellowship jarred on me and caused me to re-evaluate my beliefs. I realised that I was no longer a 'charismatic' and started describing myself as an 'evangelical'. I know that that word is fraught with misunderstanding and difficulties, and is often grotesquely caricatured and misrepresented (often by those who should know better), but it is the least worst option! The fact is a lot of what passes as contemporary evangelicalism is only loosely based on the Word of God - but I am loathe to disown these people because my own experience has taught me that God is a God of Grace. God did not disown the "crazies" in the church at Corinth but remonstrated with them using the Word of God. When I became a Christian it was on the basis of a feeble triumphalist Gospel message but it was the start of something. I had to unlearn a lot of what I will call "evangelical folklore". I suspect that there will be many people like myself sluicing around the church scene - coming to faith on the basis of an incomplete, faulty "gospel" message, poorly taught, confused and badly led; but in the Faith nonetheless.
As for the Leeds fellowship I gather that others felt ill at ease too by the same things as me but they moved toward, what would in later years be known as, the "Emerging Church" movement because they had lost confidence altogether in evangelicalism. I shared some of their reservations but what I had witnessed during the SBS had confirmed my confidence in the Bible as the Word of God and I wasn't prepared to give up on it so easily. Nor did I feel compelled to ditch key classical protestant doctrine as some of my contemporaries did. For a variety of reasons I decided (sadly) to leave Yorkshire and it was in 1991 that I moved to London to work on a children's intensive care unit. By sheer coincidence I found that I had moved to within walking distance of St Helen's Bishopsgate which has proved to be my spiritual home ever since. At the time one of my old Leeds contacts warned me off of St Helen's because it had a reputation for being a "teaching church" - the same phoney old argument that teaching the Bible kills spiritual life!
If anything I am more convinced than ever that when the Bible is faithfully taught God's voice is heard. You cannot separate the Spirit from the Word.The fact is God is a God of Grace, whose Word illuminates our darkened minds and whose Spirit softens our hardened hearts!
This is a follow-up article to an earlier post relating my experiences in "Youth With A Mission" (YWAM) in this mid 1980's. After my "Discipleship Training School" (DTS) in 1985 I had returned home to Yorkshire for a couple of years, but in 1987 (almost exactly twenty years ago) I went back to YWAM to do a year-long "School of Biblical Studies" (SBS) at The King's Lodge, near Nuneaton, in Warwickshire. At the time I still regarded myself as a Charismatic Christian but the glaring lesson from my DTS was just how disasterous it is to cut loose from the anchor of God's Word. The DTS implied (as did the wider charismatic movement) that Bible study was somehow dangerously 'cerebral' and therefore 'unspiritual': the stress they had laid on the experiential failed to grasp the obvious point that even "experiences" require some sort of interpretation: no end of authoritative pronouncements were made on the strength of leaders' supposed experiences and without the checks and balances of God's Word the leaders' own subjective "anointing" became an unimpeachable authority. I recall meeting one of the leading lights of the housechurch movement in the UK who, although he had been invited to speak about Jesus, actually spoke only about himself! But when you think about it - if you exalt the experiential at the expense of propositional teaching you have only your own self reverential ego to refer to. To faithfully teach Christ - a real person in space and time - you must preach because you can only convey who He is and what He did in world history by using words and propositions (you can no more communicate this wordlessly than you can convey anything meaningful about The Battle of The Somme without using words!) Nor can you model Christ adequately because what He did at The Cross was utterly unique!
Most (but not all) of the Charismatic leaders I had met over the years fostered a self referential arrogance I couldn't buy into and it made me want to learn more about the Bible..... not as an academic exercise, but because it was about the Lord Jesus - I loved Him and wanted to know all about Him! Of course even in this I couldn't claim to be without some mixed motives - I also supposed that I had some sort of "ministry" inside me waiting to be 'discovered' and 'recognised' (that was modelled to me). Maybe I even fancied myself as one of God's 'great ones' too - but that is probably a conceit common to young men like myself as I was at the time! So it was with these thoughts in mind that I signed up for the School of Biblical Studies.
The "SBS" was led by a quiet American called Charlie Bassett who exemplified the ideal Bible Study leader's attitude "pass the ball, don't strike at goal!" ie help others see for themselves what the Bible teaches. The 'big idea' of the SBS was called 'Inductive Bible Study' - students were encouraged to read the Bible for themselves without any preconceived ideas - it was wonderfully liberating. All questions and opinions were open for discussion unlike on the DTS two years earlier which was not as freeing as its advocates fondly thought. Quite how easily the SBS sat with the other YWAM courses I'm not entirely sure. During my time at The King's Lodge there was a DTS and a "Biblical Counselling Course" running and the members of the various groups might share thoughts over coffee about what we had all been learning and, I have to say, some of the ideas current on these other courses were a bit "iffy". Reading between the lines I think that some senior YWAM leaders had given the SBS their support because they realised that YWAM was acquiring a reputation for promoting unbiblical beliefs and some were keen to reassert basic Gospel teaching. Others in the leadership, I suspect, viewed the SBS as divisive (as if all these other teachings weren't!)
Until I did the SBS I had always read the Bible "in the flat", treating each verse as applicable to me; and I always used to put myself at the heart of the text. Maybe its a 'man thing' but I would identify myself with, for example, David fighting Goliath but what I now realised was that this is wrongly positioning myself within the text; if I was in that scenario at all it was among the quivering Israelite army who needed a champion to fight on their behalf! Another way of reading the Bible "in the flat" is to treat each verse as if it was a 'stand alone' aphorism. The SBS woke me up to the need to read those verses in context and to be sensitive to the genre of the particular literature I was reading. It was a 'revelation' to me, no pun intended! My experience of reading the Bible prior to this was like reading my way through a jumble of meaningless words and ideas occassionally stumbling upon a purple passage which I invariably felt I understood. After the SBS I realise just how important it all is and now I have a better idea of what those purple passages actually mean!
The biggest shock to me as a Charismatic Christian, as I was then, was when we read the Book of Acts and the penny dropped about "The Baptism of the Holy Spirit". I had previously just lifted what happened in Acts and applied it to me without any regard to what the author of Acts was aiming to communicate. The reality is "The Baptism of the Spirit" occured as new people groups were included within the people of God: as the church expanded geographically following the structure of the book (see Acts 1 v8), each expansion was endorsed by the Holy Spirit. For us after Acts looking back on these events it seems the Baptism of the Spirit occurs when we become part of God's people when we are 'born again'. The Word had challenged my long held belief that there was a two stage message - a Gospel message for sinners and a 'second blessing' message for believers. Bible Study is always most exciting when it challenges our preconceived ideas. The irony is that it was a Charismatic group which caused me to adopt an Evangelical position on the 'Second Blessing'!
This realisation was actually very important because it also made me realise that the Gospel is not a portal through which a Christian then progresses onto some 'higher', 'deeper' or 'more abundant life' teaching - I realised something revolutionary; the Gospel is the Christian life! If you are at the North Pole you cannot go any further North; any so-called step "forward" will take you South! Most of my Christian life upto that point was obsessed with 'moving on' and now I realised it was because I had not yet even remotely begun to understand the implications of the Gospel itself! It is more than a mere entry point. 'Higher ', 'deeper' or 'more abundant life' teaching will inevitably and subtly take us into elitism, where we feel we are a cut above the common clay. The cosey triumphalism which passes for modern day Evangelicalism (which I had always found cloyingly sentimental and unreal) assumes that the Christian is above (or ought to be above) the common experiences of mankind. Yet as I read the Bible all the great issues in life are there, death, evil, failure, suffering, justice, hope, redemption and grace - "life, the universe & everything" are all laid bare.... with total honesty.
I could mention how our study of the Book of Revelation was staggering - I have rarely ever been so encouraged by a book: suffice to say that we let the structure of the book itself help inform how the text should be read.... a repeating cycle of seven, written in the apocalyptic genre. Those Evangelicals who take their theology from pulp paperback prophecy have completely lost the plot on this book, sorry but there really isn't a kind way to say it! (If you want to, check out my posts tagged Revelation - I won't repeat myself here). Besides Charlie Bassett we had some visiting speakers including a South African called Dr Bennie Wolvaardt who taught us how to really look at the Bible text with a series of talks on 'syntactical analysis'. I know this sounds terribly highbrow but basically it is about following the line of an argument, which is especially important in the epistles. Those 'stand alone' Bible verses will trip us up if we cannot set them in their rightful place in the flow of the author's thoughts.
After the SBS concluded in the Summer of 1988 a handful of us went on to the newly acquired YWAM base at Highfield Oval in Harpenden to learn about preaching and teaching for six weeks. Bennie organised and led this phase. After a year studying the Bible I had come to realise that I was not the man I supposed myself to be; the Word of God had held a mirror up to my face and revealed a face I don't show anyone - that's how I know it's true! - I was not one of God's 'great ones' after all. I returned home, did a course in paediatric nursing at St James' Hospital in Leeds and worked on a children's oncology ward there for a year. I had joined a charismatic church in the meantime but the harsh realities of a children's cancer ward don't sit easily with the sentimental triumphalism of charismatic christianity. The glib answers and unreality of this fellowship jarred on me and caused me to re-evaluate my beliefs. I realised that I was no longer a 'charismatic' and started describing myself as an 'evangelical'. I know that that word is fraught with misunderstanding and difficulties, and is often grotesquely caricatured and misrepresented (often by those who should know better), but it is the least worst option! The fact is a lot of what passes as contemporary evangelicalism is only loosely based on the Word of God - but I am loathe to disown these people because my own experience has taught me that God is a God of Grace. God did not disown the "crazies" in the church at Corinth but remonstrated with them using the Word of God. When I became a Christian it was on the basis of a feeble triumphalist Gospel message but it was the start of something. I had to unlearn a lot of what I will call "evangelical folklore". I suspect that there will be many people like myself sluicing around the church scene - coming to faith on the basis of an incomplete, faulty "gospel" message, poorly taught, confused and badly led; but in the Faith nonetheless.
As for the Leeds fellowship I gather that others felt ill at ease too by the same things as me but they moved toward, what would in later years be known as, the "Emerging Church" movement because they had lost confidence altogether in evangelicalism. I shared some of their reservations but what I had witnessed during the SBS had confirmed my confidence in the Bible as the Word of God and I wasn't prepared to give up on it so easily. Nor did I feel compelled to ditch key classical protestant doctrine as some of my contemporaries did. For a variety of reasons I decided (sadly) to leave Yorkshire and it was in 1991 that I moved to London to work on a children's intensive care unit. By sheer coincidence I found that I had moved to within walking distance of St Helen's Bishopsgate which has proved to be my spiritual home ever since. At the time one of my old Leeds contacts warned me off of St Helen's because it had a reputation for being a "teaching church" - the same phoney old argument that teaching the Bible kills spiritual life!
If anything I am more convinced than ever that when the Bible is faithfully taught God's voice is heard. You cannot separate the Spirit from the Word.The fact is God is a God of Grace, whose Word illuminates our darkened minds and whose Spirit softens our hardened hearts!
CHILD POVERTY!
Dominic Lawson commenting in the UK newspaper, "The Independent", a few months ago stated that the most significant determinant of a child's progress in life is not his or her schooling but their parenting. Lawson relates an encounter between Frank Field, MP for Birkenhead, and the headmaster of a school he recently visited:
"There's one thing you should understand," said the principal, "about 40% of the pupils in front of you will never have had the experience of adults at home who think of putting their children's needs ahead of their own desires."
It's not "Education, education, education" that should be our new PM's slogan. It's "Family, family, family", said Lawson.
But from a Christian perspective the heart of the matter is the matter of the heart. No government can change human hearts.
Dominic Lawson commenting in the UK newspaper, "The Independent", a few months ago stated that the most significant determinant of a child's progress in life is not his or her schooling but their parenting. Lawson relates an encounter between Frank Field, MP for Birkenhead, and the headmaster of a school he recently visited:
"There's one thing you should understand," said the principal, "about 40% of the pupils in front of you will never have had the experience of adults at home who think of putting their children's needs ahead of their own desires."
It's not "Education, education, education" that should be our new PM's slogan. It's "Family, family, family", said Lawson.
But from a Christian perspective the heart of the matter is the matter of the heart. No government can change human hearts.
Monday, September 10, 2007
The rise of the
"UBER-CONSUMER"
and the decline of
PROPOSITIONAL TRUTH!
In our post-evangelical, post-modernist, post-consumerist age there is some talk about how propostional truth is passe. This is the kind of drawing room talk which only cuts much ice among the chattering classes at their dinner parties as they crack open another bottle of Chablis. "Mere words cannot convey meaning still less 'truth' - whatever that is. All truth claims are culturally bound. Yes, they say, the important thing is the debate - the dialogue is all - conclusions are so declasse!" The reality is this is a "debate" which can only truly exist (not in a post consumer age meaning they have 'moved on' from consumerism) but in an uber-consumer age when we arrogantly assume we can smorgasbord the philosophy table and select the "reality" which suits our taste. It is even possible to snack at the "Jesus" table and select the Jesus which suits us - the "another Jesus" of 2 Corinthians 11 v4! ("Uber" is a German prefix meaning "super" or "ultra", when this prefix is adopted in English it indicates quizzical disbelief. Please feel free to substitute the word Ultra if you prefer - ultra-consumer fits my meaning just as well). Reality is a human construct in this propositionless, ultra-consumer world; why not select one that is congenial? For them the "dialogue" is all and any attempt to draw universal conclusions is arrogant and mere "power politics"; any 'truth' claim is an exercise in oppression and control. Truth cannot be contained within a proposition they insist!
Of course I firmly believe this is all utter nonsense and fantasy-land thinking. If you want to dispute the point with me come and join me on the ward round on the children's intensive care unit here in London on Planet Earth. When we stand at the foot of the bed of a critically ill patient and their course of treatment is being debated why don't you chime in with your wisdom about the "meaninglessness of words" and how the "discussion is all", that conclusions are "oppressive" and how we represent an outmoded modernistic paradigm. (Don't misunderstand me; I do not believe that a reductionist scientific model describes the whole of reality - I wouldn't be a Christian if I did! - but as far as it goes it represents a model of physical reality. It is the truth and nothing but the truth, even if it is not the whole truth, because it completely misses out the spiritual dimension to reality).
Back on the ward round as we sift the results of investigations undertaken and discuss options and courses of treatment we may well not have a complete picture of the patient's condition (we rarely deal in "certainty") but we must draw some conclusions from what evidence we do have and work out an action plan - indeed it would be outrageous and morally indefensible to pass by without formulating some treatment plan even if it is only a provisional one. It may well be that over the following hours and days we will revise and refine our plans as we get a clearer picture of the disease process. Isn't this the "hermeneutical spiral" principle, constantly homing in on the truth? So do not confuse the cowardice of indecision with the virtue of humility. Do not confuse humility with merely having ceased to care! What the uber-consumer calls toleration is more likely to be indifference..... or, just possibly, despair.
But as that ward round unfolds why not discuss your insights into oppressive 'truth claims' with the parents of one of our patients? I'm sure that they would be only too interested to hear from you.... but I won't answer for how they might respond! You see we live in an uber consumer society cut off from reality but once in a while reality impinges on our illusory world that once seemed so secure; when nasty things happen then we don't want a "dialogue" with the chattering classes. When push comes to shove we recognise our need for conclusions and a course of action by experts in their field not a philosophical debate about the meaninglessness of propositions or how 'truth' is culturally determined and a
function of oppression! (Disease and misfortune are not culture bound and in fact they are a compelling international language). This whole outlook is one which can only ever arise in a complacent consumer mindset which has never had to deal with difficulty or danger as previous generations have; the uber-consumer merely wants to be left to luxuriate in a world where there are no difficult choices to make and no challenges to unsettle us. We tolerate everything not because we are caring people, we tolerate everything precisely because we have ceased to care!
Do you ever wonder why people get angry and even violent with health care workers? I've seen it happen within my own intensive care unit. It's because the health care worker tells them the truth about reality when they've always thought that they could choose their own... they are uber-consumers who bought into the post modern lie. Someone given the task of breaking bad news becomes the official representative of the society who has denied them their right to the reality of their choice! Afterall the uber-consumer's catch phrase is "I know my rights!"
It would be a shame if evangelicals buy into this sort of mentality too. The danger, as I see it, is that in an attempt to be culturally 'relevant' to the uber-consumer we tailor the Gospel message to flatter our target group - but when we do that we also cease to have anything meaningful to say, we can only reflect back the conceits of the uber-consumer and we can never challenge them. The uber-consumer does not want to be unsettled in fact they will demand (with menaces) the craven approval of the church..... for all their talk about "toleration" they will never tolerate any group not geared to flatter them.
We Evangelicals only have something distinctive to say when we are authentically counter-cultural, and we have not always been faithful in this regard, but that is something the Lord Jesus requires us to be if we are to be worthy of the name Evangelical, that is "Evangel people", literally Gospel people!
"UBER-CONSUMER"
and the decline of
PROPOSITIONAL TRUTH!
In our post-evangelical, post-modernist, post-consumerist age there is some talk about how propostional truth is passe. This is the kind of drawing room talk which only cuts much ice among the chattering classes at their dinner parties as they crack open another bottle of Chablis. "Mere words cannot convey meaning still less 'truth' - whatever that is. All truth claims are culturally bound. Yes, they say, the important thing is the debate - the dialogue is all - conclusions are so declasse!" The reality is this is a "debate" which can only truly exist (not in a post consumer age meaning they have 'moved on' from consumerism) but in an uber-consumer age when we arrogantly assume we can smorgasbord the philosophy table and select the "reality" which suits our taste. It is even possible to snack at the "Jesus" table and select the Jesus which suits us - the "another Jesus" of 2 Corinthians 11 v4! ("Uber" is a German prefix meaning "super" or "ultra", when this prefix is adopted in English it indicates quizzical disbelief. Please feel free to substitute the word Ultra if you prefer - ultra-consumer fits my meaning just as well). Reality is a human construct in this propositionless, ultra-consumer world; why not select one that is congenial? For them the "dialogue" is all and any attempt to draw universal conclusions is arrogant and mere "power politics"; any 'truth' claim is an exercise in oppression and control. Truth cannot be contained within a proposition they insist!
Of course I firmly believe this is all utter nonsense and fantasy-land thinking. If you want to dispute the point with me come and join me on the ward round on the children's intensive care unit here in London on Planet Earth. When we stand at the foot of the bed of a critically ill patient and their course of treatment is being debated why don't you chime in with your wisdom about the "meaninglessness of words" and how the "discussion is all", that conclusions are "oppressive" and how we represent an outmoded modernistic paradigm. (Don't misunderstand me; I do not believe that a reductionist scientific model describes the whole of reality - I wouldn't be a Christian if I did! - but as far as it goes it represents a model of physical reality. It is the truth and nothing but the truth, even if it is not the whole truth, because it completely misses out the spiritual dimension to reality).
Back on the ward round as we sift the results of investigations undertaken and discuss options and courses of treatment we may well not have a complete picture of the patient's condition (we rarely deal in "certainty") but we must draw some conclusions from what evidence we do have and work out an action plan - indeed it would be outrageous and morally indefensible to pass by without formulating some treatment plan even if it is only a provisional one. It may well be that over the following hours and days we will revise and refine our plans as we get a clearer picture of the disease process. Isn't this the "hermeneutical spiral" principle, constantly homing in on the truth? So do not confuse the cowardice of indecision with the virtue of humility. Do not confuse humility with merely having ceased to care! What the uber-consumer calls toleration is more likely to be indifference..... or, just possibly, despair.
But as that ward round unfolds why not discuss your insights into oppressive 'truth claims' with the parents of one of our patients? I'm sure that they would be only too interested to hear from you.... but I won't answer for how they might respond! You see we live in an uber consumer society cut off from reality but once in a while reality impinges on our illusory world that once seemed so secure; when nasty things happen then we don't want a "dialogue" with the chattering classes. When push comes to shove we recognise our need for conclusions and a course of action by experts in their field not a philosophical debate about the meaninglessness of propositions or how 'truth' is culturally determined and a
function of oppression! (Disease and misfortune are not culture bound and in fact they are a compelling international language). This whole outlook is one which can only ever arise in a complacent consumer mindset which has never had to deal with difficulty or danger as previous generations have; the uber-consumer merely wants to be left to luxuriate in a world where there are no difficult choices to make and no challenges to unsettle us. We tolerate everything not because we are caring people, we tolerate everything precisely because we have ceased to care!
Do you ever wonder why people get angry and even violent with health care workers? I've seen it happen within my own intensive care unit. It's because the health care worker tells them the truth about reality when they've always thought that they could choose their own... they are uber-consumers who bought into the post modern lie. Someone given the task of breaking bad news becomes the official representative of the society who has denied them their right to the reality of their choice! Afterall the uber-consumer's catch phrase is "I know my rights!"
It would be a shame if evangelicals buy into this sort of mentality too. The danger, as I see it, is that in an attempt to be culturally 'relevant' to the uber-consumer we tailor the Gospel message to flatter our target group - but when we do that we also cease to have anything meaningful to say, we can only reflect back the conceits of the uber-consumer and we can never challenge them. The uber-consumer does not want to be unsettled in fact they will demand (with menaces) the craven approval of the church..... for all their talk about "toleration" they will never tolerate any group not geared to flatter them.
We Evangelicals only have something distinctive to say when we are authentically counter-cultural, and we have not always been faithful in this regard, but that is something the Lord Jesus requires us to be if we are to be worthy of the name Evangelical, that is "Evangel people", literally Gospel people!
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
G.K. CHESTERTON on Humility.
"What we suffer from today is humility in the wrong place.
Modesty has moved from the organ of ambition. Modesty
has settled upon the organ of conviction; where it was
never meant to be. A man was meant to be doubtful about
himself, but undoubting about the truth; this has been
exactly reversed. Nowadays the part of a man that a man
does assert is exactly the part he ought not to assert -
himself."
Quoted from the chapter called "The Suicide of Thought"
in his book "Orthodoxy", published in 1908.
"What we suffer from today is humility in the wrong place.
Modesty has moved from the organ of ambition. Modesty
has settled upon the organ of conviction; where it was
never meant to be. A man was meant to be doubtful about
himself, but undoubting about the truth; this has been
exactly reversed. Nowadays the part of a man that a man
does assert is exactly the part he ought not to assert -
himself."
Quoted from the chapter called "The Suicide of Thought"
in his book "Orthodoxy", published in 1908.
Monday, March 26, 2007
BENEDICT XVI on Relativism.
"Today a particularly insidious obstacle to the
task of education is the massive presence in our
society and culture of that relativism which,
recognising nothing as definitive, leaves as the
ultimate criterion only the self with its desires.
And under the semblance of freedom it becomes
a prison for each one, for it separates people
from one another, locking each person into his
or her own ego."
Pope Benedict XVI speaking at a conference of
educationalists.
I chose this quotation, not because it comes from
a pope but, because he aptly expresses the problem
with 'relativism' as a sociological phenomenon.
For those of you who believe that 'relativism' is the
only absolute I would like to open up the discussion.
Benedict XVI points out the consequences of this
'relativism'; I would like to take issue with one of
its supposed foundations.
A few months ago I was listening to a debate about
'relativism' on the radio. Heaven knows where the
BBC get their pundits from but one of the panel
asserted that Einstein had provided the scientific
basis underpinning the philosophy of 'relativism'.
'Einstein proves Relativism to be true' [that is
everything is relative to each other - there are
no fixed points of reference].
While his fellow panellists acknowledged the
self evident truth of this I was shouting at the
radio! "You don't understand Relativity at all
do you!?" Even lay people have heard of e=mc2
which means energy equals mass times constant
squared. Einstein never said 'everything is
relative to everything else', he actually said mass
and energy are relative to a fixed constant - in
this case the speed of light.There are constants,
there are fixed reference points.
I suppose if something is repeated often enough
for long enough 'relativism' will become the received
wisdom. That however will never make it true.
The reality is that the human heart doesn't want
any reference outside of itself and its desires.
Whatever the BBC pundits say 'Relativism' has no
scientific basis - its basis is really found in our
self centred human nature.
I do not believe that for every proposition
there is always an equally valid opposite.
There is such a thing as objective truth, the
Cosmos does have its fixed reference points.
"Today a particularly insidious obstacle to the
task of education is the massive presence in our
society and culture of that relativism which,
recognising nothing as definitive, leaves as the
ultimate criterion only the self with its desires.
And under the semblance of freedom it becomes
a prison for each one, for it separates people
from one another, locking each person into his
or her own ego."
Pope Benedict XVI speaking at a conference of
educationalists.
I chose this quotation, not because it comes from
a pope but, because he aptly expresses the problem
with 'relativism' as a sociological phenomenon.
For those of you who believe that 'relativism' is the
only absolute I would like to open up the discussion.
Benedict XVI points out the consequences of this
'relativism'; I would like to take issue with one of
its supposed foundations.
A few months ago I was listening to a debate about
'relativism' on the radio. Heaven knows where the
BBC get their pundits from but one of the panel
asserted that Einstein had provided the scientific
basis underpinning the philosophy of 'relativism'.
'Einstein proves Relativism to be true' [that is
everything is relative to each other - there are
no fixed points of reference].
While his fellow panellists acknowledged the
self evident truth of this I was shouting at the
radio! "You don't understand Relativity at all
do you!?" Even lay people have heard of e=mc2
which means energy equals mass times constant
squared. Einstein never said 'everything is
relative to everything else', he actually said mass
and energy are relative to a fixed constant - in
this case the speed of light.There are constants,
there are fixed reference points.
I suppose if something is repeated often enough
for long enough 'relativism' will become the received
wisdom. That however will never make it true.
The reality is that the human heart doesn't want
any reference outside of itself and its desires.
Whatever the BBC pundits say 'Relativism' has no
scientific basis - its basis is really found in our
self centred human nature.
I do not believe that for every proposition
there is always an equally valid opposite.
There is such a thing as objective truth, the
Cosmos does have its fixed reference points.
Tuesday, August 01, 2006
BERTRAND RUSSELL on
"The Conscience of Savages!"
August 2006's thought from my Agnostic Calendar is;
"Then you have to say one or other of two things.
Either God only speaks to a very small percentage of
mankind.....which happens to include yourself - or
He deliberately says things not true in talking to
the consciences of savages."
Bertrand Russell. "A Debate on the Existence of God"
(1948) in [sic]
Bertie doesn't seem to have really grasped the issue here.
God has spoken to all people - what they then do with that
revelation is the point of contention. We have already covered
some of this ground back in May's "Calendar of Doom" with
Carl Sagan so I won't repeat myself here. Suffice it to say
that the people Bertie calls savages are made in God's image
and enjoy His blessings and His general revelation.
As a Christian I do not expect less of "the savage" than I do
of an urbane European philosopher! And as a Christian I do not
expect more from the latter either. Indeed one might have thought
that Bertie would have learnt something from his own experience; in
his earlier career he professed some less than savoury opinions on
race and eugenics - in fairness that was a fairly common failing with
many such early twentieth century philosophers.
The point is; Bertie is uncomprehending of the possibility that
something has gone wrong at our end of the chain of communication
with God and we are morally responsible for that. [Think about this
issue from the perspective of International Law and cross cultural
concepts of justice - don't get too hung up on the cant of ivory tower
philosophers]. When people justify brutality to their own
moral satisfaction (in Auschwitz, Cambodia, Rwanda, Darfur, Bosnia,
London, New York, Madrid, Abu Gharaib, Iraq, Beirut - any point of
the compass you care to name in fact!) does Bertrand Russell really
believe that there is nothing wrong with human consciences? Well, on
the strength of this quote apparently so..............................................
tagline; Calendar of Doom.
"The Conscience of Savages!"
August 2006's thought from my Agnostic Calendar is;
"Then you have to say one or other of two things.
Either God only speaks to a very small percentage of
mankind.....which happens to include yourself - or
He deliberately says things not true in talking to
the consciences of savages."
Bertrand Russell. "A Debate on the Existence of God"
(1948) in [sic]
Bertie doesn't seem to have really grasped the issue here.
God has spoken to all people - what they then do with that
revelation is the point of contention. We have already covered
some of this ground back in May's "Calendar of Doom" with
Carl Sagan so I won't repeat myself here. Suffice it to say
that the people Bertie calls savages are made in God's image
and enjoy His blessings and His general revelation.
As a Christian I do not expect less of "the savage" than I do
of an urbane European philosopher! And as a Christian I do not
expect more from the latter either. Indeed one might have thought
that Bertie would have learnt something from his own experience; in
his earlier career he professed some less than savoury opinions on
race and eugenics - in fairness that was a fairly common failing with
many such early twentieth century philosophers.
The point is; Bertie is uncomprehending of the possibility that
something has gone wrong at our end of the chain of communication
with God and we are morally responsible for that. [Think about this
issue from the perspective of International Law and cross cultural
concepts of justice - don't get too hung up on the cant of ivory tower
philosophers]. When people justify brutality to their own
moral satisfaction (in Auschwitz, Cambodia, Rwanda, Darfur, Bosnia,
London, New York, Madrid, Abu Gharaib, Iraq, Beirut - any point of
the compass you care to name in fact!) does Bertrand Russell really
believe that there is nothing wrong with human consciences? Well, on
the strength of this quote apparently so..............................................
tagline; Calendar of Doom.
Tuesday, April 25, 2006
THE MATERIALIST.
As an explanation of the world, materialism has
a sort of insane simplicity. It has just the quality
of the madman's argument; we have a sense of it
covering everything and the sense of it leaving
everything out. Contemplate some able and
sincere materialist, as, for instance Mr McCabe
[a noted anti-Christian rationalist of his day],
and you will have exactly this unique sensation.
He understands everything, and everything does
not seem worth understanding. His cosmos may
be complete in every rivet and cog-wheel, but still
his cosmos is smaller than our world. Somehow
his scheme, like the lucid scheme of the madman,
seems unconscious of the alien energies and the
large indifference of the earth, of fighting peoples
or proud mothers, or first love or fear upon the
sea. The earth is so very large, and the cosmos is
so very small. The cosmos is about the smallest
hole that a man can hide his head in.
GK Chesterton (1874-1936) from his book
"Orthodoxy", published 1908.
As an explanation of the world, materialism has
a sort of insane simplicity. It has just the quality
of the madman's argument; we have a sense of it
covering everything and the sense of it leaving
everything out. Contemplate some able and
sincere materialist, as, for instance Mr McCabe
[a noted anti-Christian rationalist of his day],
and you will have exactly this unique sensation.
He understands everything, and everything does
not seem worth understanding. His cosmos may
be complete in every rivet and cog-wheel, but still
his cosmos is smaller than our world. Somehow
his scheme, like the lucid scheme of the madman,
seems unconscious of the alien energies and the
large indifference of the earth, of fighting peoples
or proud mothers, or first love or fear upon the
sea. The earth is so very large, and the cosmos is
so very small. The cosmos is about the smallest
hole that a man can hide his head in.
GK Chesterton (1874-1936) from his book
"Orthodoxy", published 1908.
Thursday, February 02, 2006
VOLTAIRE on Doubt & Certainty!
February 2006's thought from my agnostic
calendar is; "Doubt is not a pleasant condition,
but certainty is absurd." Voltaire.
On balance I'm with Voltaire on this one. One would
need to be all wise and omniscient to have the certainty
Voltaire alludes to. Humans are limited in time and
space, so our knowledge can only ever be provisional
and tentative.
Jesus does not despise the faith of the man who cries
"I believe, help my unbelief!" Mark 9v24. And the
Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 13 talks about "knowing
in part...the partial passing away...giving up childish
ways. For now we see in a mirror dimly...Now I know
in part; then I shall fully know, even as I have been
fully known". Paul can say this because he grasps that
the Gospel isn't merely a set of propositions. It IS
propositional, but it is not JUST a set of propositions.
Paul realises that Christians need to grow into those
truths and we won't know it all this side of heaven. It
would be absurd to imply that the instant a Christian
becomes a Christian - crash, bang, wallop he or she
should know everything with certainty. A disciple is
"a work in progress!" There isn't a problem with the
transmitter but there is a problem with the receiver.
The Christian knows this and asks the Holy Spirit to
help him grow in understanding. This is why we are
called disciples and not sooth-sayers. God does not
require us to be superhuman - merely to recognise
that we are human.
Christians teach "the sufficiency of scripture", not
that it's a comprehensive compendium of all possible
knowledge, past, present and future. Rather it is
better to say that scripture is sufficient for us to
have confidence to direct the believer in matters of
faith and conduct. That is the common sense approach
.....and that is what it claims for itself.
It seems to me that real life never deals in "certainty".
Nor do we live our lives in a haze of doubt. Voltaire is
in danger of setting up "doubt" and "certainty" as a
false dichotomy when real life actually resides between
those two. In 1980 I did my first [and only] solo parachute
jump. Was I "certain" the parachute would work? Well,
actually no - I couldn't claim certainty for it or for the
reserve if the main failed. Does that mean I was in "doubt"?
Well; no - I wouldn't have left the ground if I was - instead
I made a judgement, one I was prepared to act on. We make
similar judgements each day in real life, well away from the
absurdities thrown up by the extremes of language [what
happens when an irresistible force meets an immovable
object - sort of thing!] To ask, am I "certain" I will arrive
safely home from work today? Or am I "certain" this salmon
mousse I am about to eat won't kill me? isn't how real life
actually ticks is it? We do not have that degree of control
and autonomy. What we do is make a judgement call. Just
as I entrusted myself to the parachute all those years ago
I am now entrusting myself to Christ - I have made a
judgement and believe he is trustworthy.
"Certainty" [or at least the desire for it] is more to do with
a desire for autonomy - being an island "entire of itself" and
making a "judgement" turns on what one has trusted in -
the recognition of the limitations of oneself and ones
connectedness with things outside of oneself, which inherently
mean dependence...and risk...as all relationships do. A child
(unaware of the dangers of electricity) who is told not to
stick it's fingers in the electric socket must make a judgement
call - to trust the carer or to believe the worst of them - it
cannot "know" autonomously.
"Certainty" is indeed absurd, but perhaps we can say that
"doubt in oneself " is the beginning of wisdom.
February 2006's thought from my agnostic
calendar is; "Doubt is not a pleasant condition,
but certainty is absurd." Voltaire.
On balance I'm with Voltaire on this one. One would
need to be all wise and omniscient to have the certainty
Voltaire alludes to. Humans are limited in time and
space, so our knowledge can only ever be provisional
and tentative.
Jesus does not despise the faith of the man who cries
"I believe, help my unbelief!" Mark 9v24. And the
Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 13 talks about "knowing
in part...the partial passing away...giving up childish
ways. For now we see in a mirror dimly...Now I know
in part; then I shall fully know, even as I have been
fully known". Paul can say this because he grasps that
the Gospel isn't merely a set of propositions. It IS
propositional, but it is not JUST a set of propositions.
Paul realises that Christians need to grow into those
truths and we won't know it all this side of heaven. It
would be absurd to imply that the instant a Christian
becomes a Christian - crash, bang, wallop he or she
should know everything with certainty. A disciple is
"a work in progress!" There isn't a problem with the
transmitter but there is a problem with the receiver.
The Christian knows this and asks the Holy Spirit to
help him grow in understanding. This is why we are
called disciples and not sooth-sayers. God does not
require us to be superhuman - merely to recognise
that we are human.
Christians teach "the sufficiency of scripture", not
that it's a comprehensive compendium of all possible
knowledge, past, present and future. Rather it is
better to say that scripture is sufficient for us to
have confidence to direct the believer in matters of
faith and conduct. That is the common sense approach
.....and that is what it claims for itself.
It seems to me that real life never deals in "certainty".
Nor do we live our lives in a haze of doubt. Voltaire is
in danger of setting up "doubt" and "certainty" as a
false dichotomy when real life actually resides between
those two. In 1980 I did my first [and only] solo parachute
jump. Was I "certain" the parachute would work? Well,
actually no - I couldn't claim certainty for it or for the
reserve if the main failed. Does that mean I was in "doubt"?
Well; no - I wouldn't have left the ground if I was - instead
I made a judgement, one I was prepared to act on. We make
similar judgements each day in real life, well away from the
absurdities thrown up by the extremes of language [what
happens when an irresistible force meets an immovable
object - sort of thing!] To ask, am I "certain" I will arrive
safely home from work today? Or am I "certain" this salmon
mousse I am about to eat won't kill me? isn't how real life
actually ticks is it? We do not have that degree of control
and autonomy. What we do is make a judgement call. Just
as I entrusted myself to the parachute all those years ago
I am now entrusting myself to Christ - I have made a
judgement and believe he is trustworthy.
"Certainty" [or at least the desire for it] is more to do with
a desire for autonomy - being an island "entire of itself" and
making a "judgement" turns on what one has trusted in -
the recognition of the limitations of oneself and ones
connectedness with things outside of oneself, which inherently
mean dependence...and risk...as all relationships do. A child
(unaware of the dangers of electricity) who is told not to
stick it's fingers in the electric socket must make a judgement
call - to trust the carer or to believe the worst of them - it
cannot "know" autonomously.
"Certainty" is indeed absurd, but perhaps we can say that
"doubt in oneself " is the beginning of wisdom.
tag-line. Voltaire. Calendar of Doom. Certainty. Doubt.
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