2009/02/25

lent?

Fasting - whether a total abstinence from food, or some other form of self-denial - has much to commend it. It's not commonly a part of Evangelical spirituality - which is odd, somehow, when it is clearly a New Testament practice. But a wise man once said "When you fast, do it in secret" (my paraphrase).

During my "Anglican Period" in my 20's (born of my locality, and the evident life of the Anglican church near me, rather than any particular theological bent) the more ready acceptance of fasting (in the most general sense, anyway, even among the more evangelical Anglicans) struck me all the more because it is so lacking in the traditions I'm more familiar with. Probably the majority were giving up something for Lent - half-heartedly, or with gusto.

But it surprised me, too: very often, there was an underlying assumption, and not necessarily a hidden one either, that someone would be a better person for giving up alcohol temporarily, or that God would love them more if they ate no chocolate until Easter. Now that, undoubtedly, is at odds with even the mildest of reformed theologies. How odd it was to hear it from evangelical lips.

Orwell called this doublethink. It was a prized trait in the world of "Nineteen Eighty-Four". It seems to be a necessary precursor to understanding modern theology. Should we embrace it, or denounce it?

2009/02/22

science and faith

I missed out on blogging about last week's Christianity: A History. It addressed colonialism - presented by a descendant of West Indian (formerly West African) slaves - again, thought-provoking and challenging.

This week, Prof. Colin Blakemore presented on science and faith: the impact of the enlightenment and beyond - via the peculiarities of the scientific creationists, ultimately to the question of whether science will make faith redundant. I suppose I should describe Blakemore as my colleague, since we both work for the same division of the University of Oxford. He's been subject to personal attacks by animal rights activists, on account of his experimental methods: and this is, in the genius of this series, his qualification to present this topic, since it deals in large part with the persecution (and execution!) of those whose science displeased those with power.

The breadth of the interation of science and faith today was rather striking. Two of the interviewees were an exceedingly sane astronomer-monk (who gave atheist Blakemore a run for his money) and an exceedingly fundamentalist astrophysicist at the Creation Museum in Ohio (whose position was essentially that scripture always trumps all other evidence). The latter - for all his learning - can't really be said to be following the scientific method, methinks.

But therein lies the problem. This is profoundly a modern argument. Blakemore says "as a scientist today, I'm free to put forward any argument, provided I can back it up with evidence" - by contrast with, say, poor Gallileo. But we all know that is simplistic. There are lots of things you're simply not allowed to study today. But he avoided that territory. He went to see the LHC, where they're looking for the Higgs Boson, the misleadingly-named "God particle", as if understanding the first microsecond (or nanosecond, or whatever it is) of the life of the universe will complete the jigsaw of understanding the wonders of creation.

In fairness, he did go and talk to an Anglican priest of the Sea of Faith connection, but I don't think he could see the point. (Not that I'm entirely sure I do, but perhaps for different reasons). But he really did seem keen on setting up the classical dichotomy - science versus God. And he didn't once ask the question about what proof would look like. The argument is absurdly circular: scientific method assumes that we can create evidence for things; that everything has an explanation if only we can find it; and that if our existing explanations do not explain everything, we must go and refine those explanations, testing them against the evidence. There's no room in that method for God, so it's hardly surprising that there is no scientific evidence to bring to bear on his existence (and so, according to Occam's rasor, no reason to suppose that existence). It seems dishonest to argue from a lack of evidence, when no evidence is possible.

But he ended with what I do take as a challenging thought-expriment: science is telling us more and more, not just about how we are made, but also about how our minds work - it's entirely plausible that in future it will be able to tell us, reliably, why we think as we do, and why we believe things. Then what happens?



[unrelated aside: just watching the first HD episode of The Simpsons. HD rocks.]

2009/02/15

genuis

The BBC often annoys me, and particularly the religion department. In this week of Darwin's bicentenary, one might have feared a tired debate between Dawkins and some creationist.

Insead, this morning's service on Radio 4 was rather wonderful: it came from the chapel of St. John's College, Cambridge, and was a service of thanksgiving for the life of Charles Darwin. The preacher was the Cambridge professor of evolutionary paleobiology (whose science would not, of course, embarrass Professor Dawkins, but who has more to say besides).

Creative response? Yes, we can do that. Genius.

2009/02/12

applied ethics gets complex

So, it might be possible (albeit a long-shot) to produce, via cloning, a real-life Neanderthal man. Wow. Where do you begin with that one?

Is it like cloning an ape: possibly reasonable for scientific purposes? Or like cloning a man: possibly also allowable in future, but only for very carefully prescribed reasons, fully respectful of the life thereby created. And theologically, is he a descendant of Adam?: I speak metaphorically, because we could discuss at length whether Adam is a person or an idea. Put another way, would he have a soul? And could you know in advance, or would you have to wait until he'd been called into being? by which time it would be a little late to decide you'd behaved unethically.

I pose those questions as a thought experiment. And yet, they may not be hypothetical, they could easily be real questions within my lifetime. And if not those, then similar ones. And because they seem imponderable, perhaps they are the wrong questions to ask. But does that suggest a poverty of understanding about the whole business of being made in the image of God?


[Here we are on Darwin's 200th birthday. If you reject that man and his wisdom; if you believe the world is less than 10,000 years old, I guess those questions will be easier to answer. But I'm afraid as far as I'm concerned, that's like saying "if the moon is made of blue cheese, do dogs go to heaven". Not an interesting conundrum.]

2009/02/08

was the reformation a ghastly mistake?

Christianity: a History continues to be challenging. Tonight, Anne Widdecombe, a high-ranking politician who converted from Anglicanism to Roman Catholicism, presented an account of the Reformation. She talked of Luther and his 95 theses, but concentrated on the impact of the English reformation - and, for contrast, the French Huegenots and the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre.

I was fascinated by the way that much of the presentation was (as befits a politician) on geo-politics, rather than theology. And how she drew the lasting legacy of those events, not in the theology of protestant, reformed, evangelical churches, but in the bizarre effigy-burning of Lewes in Sussex, and, worse, in the strife in Northern Ireland. It is salutary indeed to contemplate afresh how this potential high-spot of Christian piety - this celebration of justification by faith - is in fact so totally mired in political scheming, and grotesque, extreme violence.

According to my "that was then, this is now" theology, it won't do to try to place today's values onto yesterday. But you have to consider how much of the reformation was about understanding Christian truth, and how much was about ruthless politics. And whether it's good to celebrate it today, or to move on. [Aside: one of my formative moments was an overnight train trip from Rome to Geneva, aged 21. Rome, for all its beauty is profoundly depressing because it is full of so much controlling superstition, spiritual darkness. Geneva, by contrast, the home of Calvin's version of reformed thought, seemed a city of truth, rationality, and grace. Or so it seemed at the time.]

Perhaps it's deep in our make-up that we need an enemy, a means to unite the community by being opposed to something or someone. Christian Europe was divided upon itself, and Protestant and Catholic were at each other's throats. As Europe has drifted towards a secular world-view, the things uniting Christians have begun to seem stronger than the internecine divisions. And with an "enemy" like Islam, who needs to hate Papists?

That's almost certainly simplistic. But in an obscure little post-evangelical corner where there are mainstream evangelicals, and emergents, and a love-hate relationship with Driscoll and all his works, it make you pause for thought.

2009/02/07

faith in public

The British news has been abuzz this week with news of a nurse who was suspended from work after offering to pray with one of her patients, and having the offer declined. Evidently, the patient wasn't upset by the offer, but did mention it to the nurse's superiors, who responded with the kind of over-reaction that only middle-managers can summon.

It's a storm in a tea-cup, seemingly, and the nurse is now back at work without a reprimand. It proved to be a cue for some militant folks to argue loudly that faith should be kept to the private sphere, and should not intervene in public life, still less in professional work. That argument seems to be founded on two falacies.

One suggestion is that faith is just a personal thing, and shouldn't spread too widely. Of course, quite the opposite message comes from just about every faith community: faith is to affect the whole of one's life, to have an impact on all kinds of interpersonal relationships and professional standards too. Indeed, faith is manifestly a communal thing: all of the large world faiths impact not just homes, but schools, hospitals, charities, voluntary groups, hospices, and much else beside. Not only would society be the poorer without those things, it would also be considerably more grey. Tony Blair complained that he could not be seen to make a big thing of his faith while he was in office, for fear of being branded a nutter. What a retreat.

But it's worth than that. If you take this view that religious faith should not be privileged - indeed, should be actively suppressed in certain fields - then you have to decide what kind of belief might be involved. Should one mention one's vegetarianism in public? One's socialism? One's commitment to free trade? Some things are religiously coded, but need not be: plenty are "pro life" without offering a divine reason; should they keep that quiet? Should no one ever let on, in a professional context, which political party they may vote for?

The problem seems to be that we have allowed the creation of something we call "secular society", and unthinkingly allowed a certain set of things, attitudes, words, to be included within it, and many other things be excluded. I have the sense that American society has, in some ways, travelled much less far down this road than we have seen in Britain (or Europe?).

The trouble is, of course, that such an approach does not lead to an absence of ideology from the public sphere, but instead leaves room for others to define it. The age of a privileged narrative may be over, but that is no excuse to abdicate all responsibility for offering a narrative to every part of life. That, it strikes me, is what Jesus would do :-).

2009/02/05

oh dear

So, miffed by the Atheist bus advert campaign, several 'Christian' groups have decided to fight back with their own advertising campaign. A thoughtful, tangential response - maybe using biblical quotes in modern English (such as "Put your neighbour ahead of yourself") - might have been constructive. But instead, if the Telegraph is to be believed, we are to get:
  • "The fool hath said in his heart, there is no God."
  • "There definitely is a God. So join The Christian Party and enjoy your life."
  • "There is God. Don't Worry. Enjoy your life!"
That just strikes me as a really childish, probably counter-productive response. And it sounds like a waste of money, calculated to salve injured pride and to boast about the size of the believers' budget. Oh dear. What would Jesus do? :-)

2009/02/01

Review: Christianity, a history

Channel 4, the channel which blights British TV screens with the nonsense of Big Brother, is in the middle of a documentary series Christianity, A History. It's growing on me.

Part of its genius - and I'm gradually coming to the point of view that it really is genius - is in the choice of presenters (who each clearly wrote the episode they present). Howard Jacobson, a British Jew, presented "Jesus the Jew", wherein he reviewed Jesus' Jewishness, and how paradoxically this turned into Christian anti-semitism. Michael Portillo, a politician and agnostic, described Constantine's conversion, and the subsequent marriage of church and state. And so on.

Today's episode was presented by Rageh Omaar, a British Muslim. He talked about the Crusades, and how the West has largely forgotten them, save as a historical footnote. And how the Muslim world, by contrast, sees them as a present reality (all the more when George Dubya actually described his "War on Terror" as a crusade. Sack the speech-writer!). As an aside, I wrote down a sentence from his introduction to the programme, when he described Jerusalem:

The site of Jesus Christ's resurrection, and of the Prophet Mohammed's ascension into heaven.

What a gloriously paradoxical sentence!

Next week's episode is on the Reformation, presented by an ex-Protestant Catholic convert. I'm looking forward to it! Besides the thought-provoking presentations (in itself quite a challenging thing to do, when you have to deliver rather basic historical facts and interpret them) the high-def video presentation is stunning, and very attractive. A huge amount of on-location filming around the Mediterranean has gone into this series.

Certainly, I disagree with many of the presenters' perspectives and conclusions. But it's rather good to see these things discussed from a distance, by someone who doesn't share my point of view, and isn't simply an even-handed academic, either. The research seems good - and plenty of good quality academics are wheeled in to give soundbites - but the over-all effect is really quite compelling. I thorougly recommend the series.