Barefoot in the wilderness
in search of understanding

Mission creep

The Register is reporting that the UK Government is already allowing the proposed ID card scheme to have a far wider reach than was promised. Not only will Government departments be allowed, without consent from the individual, to spread the information held far more widely than had been declared but also the information itself will be far more comprehensive. Despite assurances during the recent parliamentary debate of the ID card Bill, the Government is now proposing that the National Identity Register be used to store medical details, to assess eligibility to vote and even to target people for health advice. Needless to say, these are purposes far removed from crime, terrorism, illegal employment and immigration, which were the only subjects mentioned in Labour’s manifesto – the document used to force the legislation through Parliament against strong opposition.

pax et bonum

EU security policy being made by arms manufacturers?

The Register discusses a report from Statewatch into the formation of EU security policy. Worryingly, it appears that the EU has effectively given control of its policy and the direction of R&D into the hands of arms manufacturers – the very companies that will profit from the results of such policies and research.

Responsibility for the formation of civil security policy and strategy have been given to the European Association of Aerospace and Defence Industries, a lobby group, and Thales, the European military giant…it had no representation from the EU parliament or Commission, and no ethical or civil representatives…With the power to control EU budgets, arms firms have already provided themselves with funding for projects including robot aircraft for “peacetime security”...They have used their power to recommended giving themselves €1bn of subsidies, in addition to existing arms subsidies, to fund a raft of research projects for monitoring and controlling civil populations….this is in effect a subsidy to cover the cost of arms firms branching out into civil surveillance

pax et bonum

How much is your blog worth?

Apparently, mine’s worth quite a lot!

My blog is worth $14,678.04.
How much is your blog worth?

Isn’t it strange what the Internet says sometimes

pax et bonum

Bloglines oddity

I’ve been annoyed for a while by a strange situation with my blogroll. I maintain this using BlogLines because it combines the ability to keep a record of blogs I want to link to (a blogroll for my blog) with aggregating and managing the feeds themselves (so that I can keep up with lots of blogs without having to visit every site daily just to check whether a new post has appeared). All is well and good.

Except that I got an odd result for my own blog. I subscribe to my own blog not for narcissism but to see how many other people subscribe to it (OK, still a little narcissistic). The oddity was that, when I looked at my listing, I saw five subscribers. However, when Anne looked at my listing, she saw 13 subscribers! This was bugging me and bugging me, until I finally reported it as a bug to the BlogLines people. They quickly got back and suggested that it was due to our subscribing to different feeds. And indeed it was so – I had chosen the Atom feed and Anne had chosen the RSS feed.

So, a warning to those using BlogLines (or any other aggregator, I’d guess) – if you publish feeds in multiple formats and want to see how many subscribers you’ve got, don’t forget to check each feed individually! I have suggested that they pool the subscriber lists for all feeds to a given blog, but who knows when that might appear…

pax et bonum

Beware Charlie the Safety Elephant

In an article in The Times justly condemning Charles Clarke for limiting the restitution paid to people falsely found guilty of crimes, Tim Worstall also writes:

On the subject of identity cards [David Blunkett] once said: “No one should fear correct identification.” Those words always remind me of one the more distressing details of the Eichmann trial: how he told his executioner that the fate of those killed in the Holocaust was sealed by their answers to the 1939 census on religious background recorded on paper for a Hollerith machine, an early mechanical computer. Quite literally, their cards were marked.

(Thanks to No2ID for the tip.)

pax et bonum

Ten-year plan for ID cards

The UK Government has unveiled its 10-year plan for introducing ID cards. This is fast work – it’s only 3 weeks since they passed the Bill! The Register is sceptical about the plan. It’s been prepared too quickly and with too little thought or consultation. Given that this is probably the largest IT project ever undertaken anywhere, proper planning will be crucial if it’s not to fail or go hugely over budget and time.

Of course, I won’t be shedding any tears if the whole thing falls apart, but I don’t want to see the money wasted.

pax et bonum

New look

As you might have noticed, I’ve altered the layout of this blog. Much of the look is the same as before, but there are a few differences.

• The main blog is now split into two sections by theme – general posts to the left, faith-related posts to the right.
• As a result, the “Linkflash” sub-blog has been subsumed into the other two sections.
• I’ve created a very clean, lean layout by hiding all the administrative stuff in a menubar up top. Thanks to the very nice scripts from Scriptaculous!

If you notice that anything’s gone wrong with the change, do let me know! And I hope you like the new layout.

pax et bonum

I want to ride my bicycle

The Guardian has a serious piece asking why so many bicycle lanes are very badly designed, and how the proposed new Highway Code could actually make things worse for cyclists. And it’s enlivened by what could be the world’s shortest bike lane!

Control orders

James has some comments on the recent High Court decision that the UK Government’s “control orders” are incompatible with human rights.

Green.tv

Green.tv could be worth a visit – the first broadband TV channel devoted to environmental issues.
(Thanks to The Register for the link.)

Woman wins Herceptin court appeal

The Guardian is reporting that a woman has wom a case in the High Court to receive Herceptin treatment for her breast cancer, despite the drug not being approved for use in early-stage cancers such as she has.

As I’ve mentioned before, there’s a lot of hype surrounding the use of Herceptin. Now, there are a couple of issues in this case. First, this woman had been prescribed Herceptin by her doctor but the Healthcare Trust in her area wouldn’t let her have it on the NHS because it’s not approved. I see no trouble with this – doctors routinely prescribe things that their patients have to buy. It is absolutely not the case that anything a doctor prescribes must be available on the NHS. The problem here is that the judges took the (to me) bizarre stance that it is “irrational” to provide a drug to some people and not to others. Most of us can, though, see no contradiction between allowing a drug to be used in cases for which it has been approved and disallowing its use in cases for which it hasn’t been approved.

Despite various pronouncements made during this case (such as “Ms Rogers, 54, had said she faced a “death sentence” if she was not provided with the treatment.“, implying that Herceptin would save her life), Herceptin is not a wonder drug against cancer. When used in combination with other drugs, it provides a few percentage points improvement in survival rates during the first year. This is obviously very worthwhile, but it’s a very long way from “a wonder drug” or “a life-saving treatment”. Crucially, there are no data available on what the long-term advantages (or disadvantages) of using Herceptin might be – but we do know that 5% of women taking the drug developed severe heart problems while using it, including congestive heart failure.

pax et bonum

Time for a change

As I mentioned a while ago, I’ve been dissatisfied with the name I gave this blog when I started. I’ve ended up going in a different direction than I originally imagined. So, I’ve given it some thought and gone for it. From now on, this blog is Barefoot in the wilderness. And you can make of that what you will

Other than that, everything will be pretty much as normal so don’t get too excited!

pax et bonum

End of Parliament in the UK?

This might sound overblown, but the Government is currently quietly passing a Bill in the UK Parliament that effectively gives Ministers the power to amend any law they like – without having to bother Parliament with it. As The Guardian, The Observer , The Times, and The Times again and again have all reported (and is, of course, discussed on the web), this Bill has been referred to (by law professors and MPs) as the Abolition of Parliament Bill.

Simply put, the tediously titled Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill lets Ministers write “Orders” that amend legislation passed by the Parliament. These Orders need not go through any Parliamentary process beyond rubber-stamping by a committee (not, be it noted, the House itself). No debate is allowed, just a vote. And, of course, the Minister decides which committees see the Order! There are a few safeguards in place but, bizarrely, this Bill is itself liable to amendment by Orders – which means that (once passed) any inconvenient resitrictions could be easily removed.

This means that Ministers can change any law at all. They can change the punishments for crimes, make new acts criminal, impose new obligations on British subjects at will, do anything they like, provided it can be tacked onto an existing piece of legislation. No longer need they convince anyone (least of all the public) that their plans are good ones. They could even extend the period between General Elections or, indeed, abolish them entirely. They have only to see a possibility and then take action.

No one is suggesting that the Government actually envisages creating a police state – merely making its own life easier by facilitating the amendment of legislation. However, if a Government with this big a majority has problem passing its Bills, perhaps the problem is in the content of those Bills rather than in the Parliamentary process? Parliament doesn’t exist simply to frustrate the plans of Ministers. It exists as a system of checks and balances upon Ministers, to ensure that their plans are reasonable, feasible and acceptable. As such, it must not be bypassed willy nilly. Also, whatever this Government’s intentions, once an Act like this is passed, it’s available to any future Government. And is it really sensible to hand such a carte blanche to anyone? Least of all an unknown set of politicians. By all means, let’s have a Bill that helps Parliament to work better – but not one that bypasses democracy.

Do go and check this out for yourself. The links above are a good start. Then write to your MP (just takes a couple of minutes from that website) and encourage them to oppose this Bill when it comes back for its next reading. Bad laws serve no one except the corrupt and power-hungry.

pax et bonum

Be careful what you listen to!

A man was dragged from a plane and interrogated because the taxi driver who took him to the airport didn’t like his taste in music. (From The Register .)

Bishop criticises use of fear to justify legislation

Bishop Alan Smith recently criticised the use of fear and anxiety to enforce serious changes to our laws and policing.

The bishop went on to say: “I do not wish to trivialise the tragedy of the July bombings.
“If you lost a loved one in a terrorist attack it is the most awful and devastating experience. But we do need to keep this in perspective.
“In 2004 around 3300 people died in road accidents, just under 3900 people died in accidents in the home. And, in 2005, 37 people died in terrorist incidents in London.
“Yet the fear of terrorism is being used to justify all sorts of radical changes in the police forces, in the law and it is also challenging some of our long held freedoms.”

pax et bonum

Some quotations

Heather at Driftwood pointed me at this page of quotations. There are some old favourites in there, but also some I’d not heard before and that resonate worryingly with our current political situation.

• One of the greatest delusions in the world is the hope that the evils in this world are to be cured by legislation. (Thomas B. Reed (1886))
• The more corrupt the state, the more it legislates. (Tacitus)
• There is no worse tyranny than to force a man to pay for what he does not want merely because you think it would be good for him. (Robert Heinlein)
• [On ancient Athens]: In the end, more than freedom, they wanted security. They wanted a comfortable life, and they lost it all – security, comfort, and freedom. When the Athenians finally wanted not to give to society but for society to give to them, when the freedom they wished for most was freedom from responsibility, then Athens ceased to be free and was never free again. (Edward Gibbon)
• Can our form of government, our system of justice, survive if one can be denied a freedom because he might abuse it? (Harlon Carter)

pax et bonum

Waste of time?

Sorry for the lack of posts here in the past few days. I’ve been wasting my time with new toys instead of blogging.

What toys? Well, I’ve bought myself a new electric fiddle from eBay. Not one of the gorgeous but expensive Bridge fiddles that I’ve been lusting after for a while now. Instead of spending £1000 or so on something I couldn’t be sure I’d like long term, I’ve opted to spend £63 (including postage!) on something that will let me get started. OK, it’s not exactly pretty and, OK, it doesn’t sound anything like as nice as the Bridge, but for this price I can’t really complain

Of course, an electric instrument isn’t much use by itself so I’ve also added an M-Audio Black Box – a combined amp modeller / effects box / drum machine / USB recording interface that Tom pointed me at. They’re going quite cheap at the moment (I got mine for £99 from SoundControl but they seem to have sold out online now) but are very good value for money. So, for less than £165, I’ve got myself a starter electric fiddle / effects / recording setup. Which is nice It looks like this:

The fiddle actually looks a little nicer than that makes it look – the paint isn’t flat red but is a bit sparkly. However, the strings on it are horrible!

The basic, unaltered fiddle sounds like this (75 kB mp3) but adding a bit of reverb and chorus to it mellows it somewhat (145 kB mp3). Of course, being electric means that I can do funky (150 kB mp3) and strange (300 kB mp3) things. OK, so the playing’s not that great on those tracks – I’ll try and get a better recording! Those are my first attempts; the provided software is powerful but doesn’t always work the way I expect.

pax et bonum

The ID debate - moving forward (II)

With the groundwork out of the way in this attempt to move forward in the debate about Intelligent Design, I’ll discuss some of the ways in which we think about God and Creation. These are our mental models – metaphors, pictures, assumptions – that lie behind and shape the direction our thoughts may take. The first thing to say here is thus that I am talking about metaphors – models that help us to understand God and God’s activities. Metaphors are essential because we cannot describe God directly. All of our understanding and language are limited to this world, we have no direct concepts of God. Thus, it’s crucial to have a collection of metaphors that are both accurate and recognised; if we use metaphors without recognising them for what they are, we will make mistakes (seeing them as literal rather than as metaphorical truths, for example). So, first, I want to look at a couple of metaphors that are commonly used when thinking about God’s relationship to Creation and why I believe them to be inadequate. Then, I’ll discuss a couple that I believe to be more useful, while being at least as well grounded in the Bible.

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The ID debate - moving forward (I)

So, as I said previously, I find Intelligent Design theory unconvincing and theologically flawed. If that’s so, how do I move on? That is, how do I reconcile the activities of God in Creation with the discoveries of science? The first thing to say is that this is the wrong question. What is needed is a reconciliation between our understanding of God’s activities and our discoveries about the nature of Creation. If we frame the discussion as “God vs science”, we will never reach the correct conclusions because the question assumes something that is untrue – that these two quests for truth are somehow in contradiction.

It’s important, though, to realise that I am here thinking through theological issues, not scientific ones. The arguments I’m proposing (and they are off the top of my own head, so sensible counter-arguments are welcome!) are not dealing at all with the questions of whether we actually see design in the Universe (for example). Rather, I’m thinking about where we end up if we take certain postulates as true.

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Christian Carnival CXIX

The latest Christian Carnival is up. Full of the usual range of opinions and divergent voices – check it out!

The ID debate - a summary

I’ve recently been posting a debate that I had with Peter Williams following an article I wrote about the theological implications of intelligent design theory. (The debate links are: part I, part II, part III, part IV, part V and part VI.) This current post is an attempt to summarise (for myself as much as anyone else!) what I’ve learned from this discussion.

First, I still believe that my original criticism of ID theory is valid. That is, for the Christian, it runs the permanent and serious danger of being dualist in its view of the relationship between Creator and Creation. This arises from the requirement for two kinds (or “modes” if you prefer) of divine creative activity. The theological justification for “design events” (those features that are suggested to be impossible to explain by the application of natural laws such as natural selection) always skirts the idea that all other biological change is somehow less “ordained” by God. It also seems to see these everyday events as too humdrum and ordinary to be really the work of God at all – for if God is active there, why do we posit this extra level of “design”? Yet, if the Incarnation tells us anything about God, it is that it is precisely in the ordinary and humdrum that we should expect to see God.

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The logic of all purity movements is to exclude

Andrew Linzey (editor of Gays and the Future of Anglicanism, a response by leading theologians to the Windsor Report) writes in The Times about the current crisis in the Anglican Church over homosexuality. Although he’s not only talking about that. Rather, he’s talking about the root cause – the clash between the desire for purity and the desire for community

In previous decades disagreements about sexuality bothered Anglicans, but the idea that they merited schism would have been regarded as preposterous. That we are now at this point indicates the near triumph of the exclusivist tendency…
“Conservatives” are seen as preserving “historic truth” and “progressives” as wilfully discarding it. So long as the debate is cast in those terms, no resolution is possible. The way forward is to grasp the dynamic of God: as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The Spirit is the teaching God, which, we are promised, will guide believers into all truth (John xvi, 13).
Not all truth is given in the past; the Spirit has something to teach us in the present. It is untrinitarian consistently to oppose God’s work in the past to what we may learn here and now. All innovations should be tested, but it is a mistake to assume that all development is infidelity…
There is one sure way of testing the Spirit: do our beliefs lead to an increase in injustice, bigotry and suffering? If they do, they simply cannot be reconciled with the workings of the creative, compassionate Spirit promised to us…
the agenda of conservatives is a rolling one: today it is gays, but biblical inerrancy, interfaith worship, women bishops, remarriage after divorce will surely follow. The logic of all purity movements is to exclude.

(Thanks to Father Jake for the link.)

pax et bonum

Division and the Gospel

Sven continues looking at Galations and, in particular, the question of the “other Gospel” that Paul warns about. Sven’s particularly concerned with how these verses are used by some Christians to condemn other Christians – casting all differences from “my” Gospel as Paul’s “other Gospel”. By contrast, Sven shows that the “other Gospel” Paul writes about to the Galations isn’t about any doctrinal difference. Rather it’s about division – splitting the Body of Christ up, even declaring that others are outside the Body.

Having believed the message about Christ, the false Gospel denies Christ and harms the Church by reopening the divisions and disunity that Christ abolished (hence the climax of the letter in 3:28). The “other Gospel” is concerned not with how the church relates to the world, or how the church helps get the world into heaven, but how the church relates within itself. It is an ecumenical issue, not primarily one to do with mission and evangelism…This is what the “other Gospel” looks like in practice: if anything except Christ is made the central unifying point of the church, then division arises. The sin of the “other Gospel” is that it makes central what should really be peripheral, and thus the church is divided and broken up into factions.

pax et bonum

The ID debate (VI)

(Following on from The ID debate I, II, III, IV and V, here is my final contribution.)

Peter said:

For a defence of premise (a) of the argument for ID you really should read some of the work by William A. Dembski on ‘specified complexity’.

I’ve read some of what Dembski has written and I’m not completely impressed. His logic is often good, as far as it goes, but when applied to the actual biology there are some serious issues. The first is whether biology is “complex” in the way he needs it to be.

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The ID debate (V)

(Following on from The ID debate I, II, III and IV, here is Peter’s third [and, to date, final] contribution.)

For a defence of premise (a) of the argument for ID you really should read some of the work by William A. Dembski on ‘specified complexity’. I recommend starting at the beginning and reading The Design Inference (Cambridge). For Dembski’s application of the design filter to biology, and his extended defence of Irreducible Complexity as a specific example of specified complexity, and which also considers your objection to irreducible complexity, cf. Dembski’s book No Free Lunch.

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The ID debate (IV)

(Following on from The ID debate I, II and III, here is my latest contribution.)

Peter wrote:

as a scientific theory all ID claims is that:
a) we have one or more reliable criteria for making positive inferences to intelligent design
b) one or more features of the world pass those criteria [snip]
Since this forms a logically valid syllogism, I would simply ask whether you are denying the truth of the premise that we have reliable design detection criteria, or the truth of the premise that something in nature signals design according to reliable design detection criteria, or both?

This is, I think, the crux of your reply. And the basic point that needs to be made is that we do not, in fact have a design detector. That is, claim (a) is false.

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Radical Jesus and 'exotic mysteries'

Rowan Williams (the Archbishop of Canterbury) has posted the text of an article he wrote for the most recent Mail on Sunday (a conservative UK newspaper). In it, he talks about why people like to hear about things like the Gospel of Judas and why we prefer sensational conspiracy stories to the prosaic truth.

When the Jesus of the Gospels comes back from the dead, he doesn’t go and crow over his enemies, he meets his friends and tells them to get out there and talk about him – about what his life and death have made possible, about forgiveness, making peace, being honest about yourself, checking the temptation to judge and condemn, tackling your selfishness at the root, praying simply and trustingly.
This is flesh and blood. It’s not about exotic mysteries. It is about how God makes it possible for us to live a life that isn’t paralysed by guilt, aggression and pride. It asks us to come down to earth and face what’s wrong with us. Is it surprising that some people found this too direct, too in-your-face to cope with? No wonder they preferred to go on about the names of angels and the secrets of how the world began.

(Thanks to Ekklesia for the link.)

pax et bonum

The ID debate (III)

(Following on from The ID debate I and II, here is Peter’s second contribution.)

I took you to be saying that ID divided nature into designed and not designed, which is the same critique as given by Denis Alexander. I argued that it does not necessarily do this. My point was simply that ‘if we interpret ID within a theistic framework which is not part and parcel of the theory as a scientific hypothesis – we do not end up dividing nature into a dualism of ‘designed’ and ‘not designed’, but rather into different modes of divine causation.’ These modes may be ‘creating and sustaining’ (primary causaation) certain physical laws which together result in certain outcomes (perhaps through an evolutionary process) that may or may not all be intended by God (secondary causation) on the one hand, and deliberate primary causal activity on the other. To say that something in nature (a law, a structure, an event) does not trigger a design inference because it does not exhibit specified complexity, for example, is not to force the theologian to say that it is not sustained in existence by God, or that God
did not create it, or that God did not intend it.

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Constantinianism, War and Norman Kember

Graham from Leaving Munster has written an open letter to Alan Billings, a Christian ethicist who was on BBC Radio 4’s Moral Maze the other day. Graham is criticising Billings’ apparent attitude towards non-violence and its place with the Christian faith.

surely the question that needs to be asked is whether the Church belongs in an embrace with the empire. If such a scenario requires diluting the teachings of Jesus, in order to serve the needs of an Imperialistic conqueror – who showed no fruits of repentance or signs of genuine discipleship – then it is an act of allegiance to our Lord to not embrace the Empire and to resist assimilation with the State. It remains such an act today.
Jesus is not such an awkward figure once we are ready to accept that his words hold greater weight than those of Constantine, Augustine or Bush.

pax et bonum

The ID debate (II)

(Continuing The ID debate. This was my reply to Peter’s initial comments.)

The necessary distinction is between design that is empirically detectable by given criteria and design that is not thus detectable…Hence, even if we interpret ID within a theistic framework which is not part and parcel of the theory as a scientific hypothesis – we do not end up dividing nature into a dualism of ‘designed’ and ‘not designed’, but rather into different modes of divine causation.

I think that, here, you’re either using Intelligent Design in an unusual way or misunderstanding some of the implications of what you’re saying. What I understand from your reply is that you believe that everything is in fact designed (controlled) by God, but that this design is only evident in certain cases. In the first section of the reply below, I address this possibility. (I assume that design and control are close synonyms because the one implies the other – if God has a design, it is worthless unless God has the control of Creation needed to make it come about. If we need to debate this question separately then just say.)

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The ID debate (I)

A while ago now, I wrote a piece discussing the theory of “Intelligent Design”, which suggests that we can find scientific evidence supporting the idea that evolution is insufficient to explain the diversity of living things, and that we must instead posit an external force (usually understood as God) intervening. Although I have various problem with this (in the science not least), I was there concerned primarily with the theological implications of ID – most particularly with my concern that, in trying to incorporate aspects of both evolution and theistic creation, ID was becoming dualist in its approach.

A friend passed my article on to Peter Williams, a philosopher and apologist. He was kind enough to engage me in a short debate on the subject by email, during the course of which we discussed certain themes that are often obscured. Peter has given his permission for me to reproduce our emails here, and I’ll post them individually over the next few days. First, then, Peter’s initial response to my first post.

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The great disturbance

Mark tells us that Easter isn’t a “Happy Ending” after all. The resurrection cannot be reduced to that.

it’s not a case of “things turned out alright after all” or “hey presto, he’s back and all’s back to normal” – nothing is ever normal or alright now, nor will it be.

pax et bonum

Manchester Passion

I’ve just finished watching Manchester Passion – the BBC’s new version of the Passion story. For those who missed it (most people outside the UK, apart from anyone else!), it was a live, 1-hour programme taking Jesus through the City of Manchester from the Last Supper and Gethsemane to the crucifixion, accompanied by a Manchester soundtrack (music from New Order, James, Oasis etc.). OK, it was broadcast on Good Friday, but we only just got around to watching it

Generally, I thought it was very good. Some of the music worked particularly well – for me, stand outs include Sit Down during the Gethsemane moment (“Those who feel the breath of sadness / Sit down next to me / Those who find they’re touched by madness / Sit down next to me / Those who find themselves ridiculous / Sit down next to me / In love, in fear, in hate, in tears / In love, in fear, in hate”) and Pilate duetting with Jesus to Wonderwall (“Maybe / You’re gonna be the one who saves me / Yeah maybe / You’re gonna be the one who saves me”). And the downbeat/upbeat switch at the end was handled excellently (the sudden appearance of Jesus at the top of the clock tower singing I am the resurrection by the Stone Roses!). Some of this music is, in this context, profoundly worshipful stuff! Writers of “worship songs” take note!

If you get the chance, I’d heartily recommend watching it for a refreshingly different and moving version of the story.

pax et bonum

The Gospel of Judas

Sven posts an extract from NT Weight’s Maundy Thursday sermon, about the document there’s been so much news about on the News – the “Gospel of Judas”. The point is that this “Gospel” is not a contemporary account of Jesus (whether by Judas or not). It’s very obviously a product of the Gnostic religion of the second and third centuries. This much was obvious from the most cursory report of what the Gospel says, and Wright agrees that, when studied in detail, exactly the same conclusion presents itself.

Wright sees exactly why this “Gospel” is so interesting to people at the moment:

First, then, this document is worthless historically. Second, it is opposed to the fundamental Jewish and Christian doctrine of the goodness of creation. And third, it cuts the nerve of working for God’s kingdom in the real world. Who cares about speaking the truth to power if the real task is to escape? Why bother feeding the hungry and housing the homeless, why worry about global debt or global warming or the madness of global warfare, if the main thing to do is to follow your own star and discover your true spiritual identity? Why bother following the real Jesus and standing defenceless before the powers of the world if you can invent a fake Jesus who panders to your inner desires? Let’s be quite clear: despite the sneers of so many who say that the New Testament was written, edited and then chosen out of a much larger collection of books in order to sustain the church’s political power and prestige, the truth is that in the second and third century, long before anyone thought of the Constantinian settlement, it was the people who were reading Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, Acts, Romans and the rest who were being thrown to the lions, burned at the stake, beaten and bullied and beheaded. Why would Caesar worry about ‘Thomas’, ‘Judas’ and the other pseudo-gospels?

pax et bonum

Christian Carnival CXVII

Christian Carnival CXVII is up at Cadmusings.

Illiterally literal

Slacktivist ponders something that recently happened to Bill Nye the Science Guy when speaking at a Texas community college.

“The Emmy-winning scientist angered a few audience members when he criticized literal interpretation of the biblical verse Genesis 1:16, which reads: ‘God made two great lights – the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars.’
He pointed out that the sun, the ‘greater light,’ is but one of countless stars and that the ‘lesser light’ is the moon, which really is not a light at all, rather a reflector of light.
A number of audience members left the room at that point, visibly angered by what some perceived as irreverence.
‘We believe in a God!’ exclaimed one woman as she left the room with three young children.”

This is what Rowan Williams, the archbishop of Canterbury, meant when he warned of “creationism … reducing the doctrine of creation.”
This sad, angry woman has somehow been convinced that it is impossible to believe in God without also believing in an illiterately literal reading of Genesis 1:16. She’s painted herself into a corner in which she must reject not only evolution, but the existence of the dark side of the moon. She is forced to regard Neil Armstrong as the pawn of Satan.
This is the inevitable conclusion of the brittle faith she has been taught. It is impossible, she has been told, to believe in God without also accepting this unworkably literal reading of every phrase in the first 11 chapters of Genesis. Thus, if the moon simply reflects the light of the sun and does not itself project light, she believes, then there is no God. And that means, she has been taught, that life is random, meaningless, nasty, brutish and short.
That’s part of the fundamentalist “worldview” – to use one of their favorite words – that only these two options exist.
Option No. 1: Total and unquestioning belief in the God of the fundies’ literalist text.
Option No. 2: Nihilism.

This is indeed the issue – when some people talk themselves into a religion that drives a wedge between Creator and Creation. They start out by trying to honour this relationship but inevitably end up setting the one against the other.

(Thanks to Mike at Word for the link.)

pax et bonum

Creationists target schools and universities

Ekklesia is reporting another attempt by Creationists to target schools and universities in Britain. As part of this post, though, the writer makes a good point

“Traditional theologians have long argued that God makes the world in such a way that it makes itself, allowing room for both contingency and order,” [Simon Barrow of Ekklesia] explained. “Divine creativity and response to a universe open to freedom and love is much more ‘intelligent’ than limited notions of ‘design’ which reduce it to a product,” he claims.
Adds Barrow: “Creationists and IDers keep saying, ‘teach the controversy’. But there is no such controversy among those with a proper grasp of science and theology. The call for ‘debate’ is a phony way of keeping discredited ideas alive and distorting the search for truth.”

And also the following snippet, which chimes with my own thoughts on this issue:

Scientific philosophers such as Michael Ruse, an agnostic, have argued that evolution should be taught free of both religious and atheistic connotations, since it is interpretable in a number of ways and is not value-laden in terms of metaphysical belief. [My emphasis.]

That is, evolution as a scientific theory does not intrinsically say anything about theism or atheism. Rather, it is the interpretations that we put on it that make such claims. It is crucial to separate the two – the theory and its metaphysical interpretation – if we are to think clearly and correctly, and to communicate with each other. Indeed, the article continues:

Ruse has also criticised leading Darwinian advocates like Richard Dawkins and Daniel Dennett for inadvertently encouraging creationists – through their lack of understanding of mainstream religion, and by confusing the advancement of [science] with anti-religious propaganda.

pax et bonum

Mother and child

I realised that I’ve not really done anything Lent-ish and it’s swiftly heading towards Easter. So, in the absence of anything new, you might like the meditation I posted last year, based on one of the stations of the cross (Mary holding Jesus’ body).

pax et bonum

Freedom to choose?

In a discussion elsewhere, we’ve been talking about how God’s sovereignty and our own freedom fit together. Some there have been defending a total absence of human freedom, with God directing every event in Creation. I find this incompatible with my understanding of Christian faith. Even the milder version, which allows humans freedom to act but denies them any part in their salvation (reserving all responsibility for this to God) seems to me to be a mistake.

Perhaps here the fundamental problem is encapsulated in the following query, posted there in a comment:

The First Question is merely this – does man choose or does man not choose?

I do not believe that this is The First Question. It can never be The First Question. Whether or not we can choose comes a long way after a great many other questions have been answered – it’s a derived answer, not a fundamental answer. So, I believe that we must start with the Incarnation and reason from there; we must not start from philosophy and apply it to God.

(click for more)

Peacenik

Welcome to new kid on the block Peacenik. This is a new internet service provider and email handler, founded by Ekklesia, the Christian think tank, and Premier Radio. The unique aspect of Peacenik is that it’s a not-for-profit organisation that will make contributions to peace work throughout the world instead of taking its profit. So, if you fancy moving your broadband or dial-up connection, getting a new connection or even simply acquiring a spam-filtered email address peacenik.co.uk or peacemonger.co.uk, go have a look.

pax et bonum

Preparation

Father Jake ponders the question of whether we have “preparation time” all wrong.

Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan … And the Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. He was in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan (Mark 1:9-13).
I have lots of problems with this passage. First of all, it seems to have things a bit backwards. Jesus is baptized, claimed as a member of the household of God, and then goes through a period of preparation or purification.
Shouldn’t the preparations be made first, and then the baptism? Before an adult is baptized, they prepare themselves. Before we receive communion, we prepare ourselves. Before ordination, the ordinand traditionally makes a retreat.
Just possibly, we have it backwards.

pax et bonum