Some thoughts on the redefinition of marriage

Several countries are currently discussing (or are already in the process of) redefining marriage. With that in mind, there’s a new paper by Ryan T. Anderson entitled: Marriage: What It Is, Why It Matters, and the Consequences of Redefining It. Although there are obvious religious considerations to this issue, Anderson isn’t actually discussing those issues in any detail in this paper.

The abstract expands:

Marriage is based on the truth that men and women are complementary, the biological fact that reproduction depends on a man and a woman, and the reality that children need a mother and a father. Redefining marriage does not simply expand the existing understanding of marriage; it rejects these truths. Marriage is society’s least restrictive means of ensuring the well-being of children. By encouraging the norms of marriage—monogamy, sexual exclusivity, and permanence—the state strengthens civil society and reduces its own role. The future of this country depends on the future of marriage. The future of marriage depends on citizens understanding what it is and why it matters and demanding that government policies support, not undermine, true marriage.

There are a few key points that come up throughout the paper. The first is that redefining marriage does not simply expand the existing understanding of marriage. It would actually contradict the traditional concept of marriage. Raising kids – and thus sustaining society – happens best in a stable home with both parents present. Marriage as an institution is primarily about bringing up the children that are produced by the husband and wife. As Anderson wrote in another paper on the same topic:

In recent decades, marriage has been weakened by a revisionist view that it is more about adults’ desires than children’s needs. This view reduces marriage primarily to intense emotional bonds.

If marriage were just intense emotional regard, marital norms would make no sense as a principled matter. There is no reason of principle that requires an emotional union to be permanent. Or limited to two persons. Or sexual, much less sexually exclusive (as opposed to “open”). Or inherently oriented to family life and shaped by its demands.

Redefining marriage would further distance marriage from the needs of children and deny the importance of mothers and fathers. It would deny, as a matter of policy, the ideal that children need a mother and a father.

Redefining marriage would also diminish the social pressures and incentives for husbands to remain with their wives and their biological children and for men and women to marry before having children. It would be very difficult for the law to send a message that fathers matter once it had redefined marriage to make fathers optional.

The traditional definition of marriage (one man, one woman, monogamous) does not restrict consenting adults from forming whatever other relationships they like.

The paper is presented in three sections. Here’s an outline of the major points:

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I. What Is Marriage?

1. Marriage exists to bring a man and a woman together as husband and wife to be father and mother to any children their union produces.
2. Marriage is based on the anthropological truth that men and women are complementary, the biological fact that reproduction depends on a man and a woman, and the social reality that children need a mother and a father.
3. Marriage as the union of man and woman is true across cultures, religions, and time. The government recognizes but does not create marriage.
4. Marriage has been weakened by a revisionist view of marriage that is more about adults’ desires than children’s needs.

II. Why Marriage Matters for Policy

1. Government recognizes marriage because it is an institution that benefits society in a way that no other relationship does.
2. Marriage is society’s least restrictive means of ensuring the well-being of children. Marital breakdown weakens civil society and limited government.
3. Marital breakdown costs taxpayers.
4. Government can treat people equally—and leave them free to live and love as they choose—without redefining marriage.
5. We reap the civil society benefits of marriage only if policy gets marriage right.

III. The Consequences for Redefining Marriage

1. Redefining marriage would further distance marriage from the needs of children and deny the importance of mothers and fathers.
2. Redefining marriage would put into the law the new principle that marriage is whatever emotional bond the government says it is.
3. Redefining marriage would weaken monogamy, exclusivity, and permanency—the norms through which marriage benefits society.
4. Redefining marriage threatens religious liberty.

Check out the whole paper here.

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Related posts:

A legal defense of marriage

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Infallibility: a user’s guide

I received the following piece via email from the Jesuit Institute of South Africa.

I didn’t write it, but I think that it is a useful discussion of what the Catholic concept of “papal infallibility” actually entails.

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Infallible? by Raymond Perrier

Infallible must be one of the most misunderstood terms in Catholic vocabulary.  Reflecting on the Papacy of Benedict XVI we can remind ourselves what Papal infallibility is and most importantly what it is not.

The origins of the idea of infallibility started not with Popes but with the Church.  The notion is that the whole body of the Church gathered together – for example a council of the worldwide college of bishops – must be inspired by the Holy Spirit and so cannot make an error.  Thus, the bishops assembled with the Pope (as at the Second Vatican Council 50 years ago) can invoke infallibility.

However, 150 years ago, faced with the prospect of being isolated in the Vatican City by the newly united Italy, the then Pope Pius IX was worried that he would not be able to call a Council of the Church if he needed to.  He thus proposed that infallibility applied not only to Councils but also to the Pope acting on his own; this was declared by the First Vatican Council in 1870.  Thus, every Pope since has in theory been able to invoke infallibility.

But this is the key: infallibility must be invoked.  It is not automatic.  The Pope has to be speaking from his office as Bishop of Rome (the Latin term for this ‘ex cathedra’ is the source of the word ‘cathedral’); it must be on a matter of faith or morals; and it must be in keeping with Scripture and the tradition of the Church; it is held to be ‘divinely revealed’.  So you can’t go and ask the Pope to tell you the location of the Holy Grail or the weather forecast for next April or the winning numbers of the Lotto and expect his answer to be infallible.

In fact, infallibility was never invoked by Pope Pius IX nor by Paul VI nor even by John Paul II.  It has only been used explicitly once which was in 1950 when Pope Pius XII proclaimed the dogma of the Assumption – which had actually been widely since at least the 4^th century.

When a Pope teaches it is – outside of a General Council – the highest teaching of the Church but it is not automatically infallible.  Benedict knew that very well.  Furthermore, he knew that he had to distinguish between his authoritative teaching as Pope (his extraordinarily beautiful and thoughtful encyclicals or his weekly Angelus address) and his writings as a theologian, even the ones that came out while he was Pope.

He was also able to admit a mistake.  One example of this was when, in an attempt to build bridges with a right-wing breakaway group of bishops, he unwittingly engaged with a man who turned out to be a holocaust denier.  Pope Benedict came as close to any Pope ever has in saying – whoops, we got it wrong; we didn’t do our homework.

It is worth remembering the answer he gave just before the conclave that elected him in 2005.  A journalist asked if the Holy Spirit would be electing the new Pope.  The then Cardinal Ratzinger replied: “No, the cardinals will elect the new Pope.  However, we hope that the Holy Spirit is not absent from the process.”

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Raymond Perrier is Director of the Jesuit Institute of South Africa

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Related posts:

Vale, Pope Penedict XVI

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Vale, Pope Benedict XVI

Pope Benedict XVI announced today that he will be stepping down from the papacy. As he wrote in his resignation letter:

“After having repeatedly examined my conscience before God, I have come to the certainty that my strengths, due to an advanced age, are no longer suited to an adequate exercise of the Petrine ministry.

“I am well aware that this ministry, due to its essential spiritual nature, must be carried out not only with words and deeds, but no less with prayer and suffering.

However, in today’s world, subject to so many rapid changes and shaken by questions of deep relevance for the life of faith, in order to govern the bark of Saint Peter and proclaim the Gospel, both strength of mind and body are necessary, strength which in the last few months, has deteriorated in me to the extent that I have had to recognize my incapacity to adequately fulfil the ministry entrusted to me.”

I, for one, salute him for his dedication to his ministry, and the courage and humility that it took to do this. It’s an extremely demanding job, but it’s also a very high-profile one, and as such it must be difficult to keep viewing it as an act of love and service. But as in all things, not through our own strength.

He is the 265th person to hold the position, and the first of the Internet Age. Among the virtues that he brought to the office were a keen academic mind and intellectual rigour. In particular, his rejection of relativism is insightful:

“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.”

He has also masterfully combined a commitment to orthodox Christianity with an emphasis on “friendship with Jesus”:

“Are we not perhaps all afraid in some way? If we let Christ enter fully into our lives, if we open ourselves totally to Him, are we not afraid that He might take something away from us? … No! If we let Christ into our lives, we lose nothing, nothing, absolutely nothing of what makes life free, beautiful and great. No! Only in this friendship do we experience beauty and liberation… When we give ourselves to Him, we receive a hundredfold in return. Yes, open, open wide the doors to Christ – and you will find true life.”

Ave atque vale, Benedictus XVI.

Lawsuits among believers

In 1 Corinthians 1-6, Paul admonishes the church in Corinth because church members have been suing each other. In this age of incessant litigation, it’s a passage with a great deal of application.

Here’s how it reads in the NIV:

“If any of you has a dispute with another, do you dare to take it before the ungodly for judgment instead of before the Lord’s people? Or do you not know that the Lord’s people will judge the world? And if you are to judge the world, are you not competent to judge trivial cases? Do you not know that we will judge angels? How much more the things of this life! Therefore, if you have disputes about such matters, do you ask for a ruling from those whose way of life is scorned in the church? I say this to shame you. Is it possible that there is nobody among you wise enough to judge a dispute between believers? But instead, one brother takes another to court — and this in front of unbelievers!”

First, some context: the kind of disputes that Paul is talking about are minor. He’s talking specifically about civil suits, so this is not about murder or grand larceny, it’s more like someone damaged your car. What constitutes “minor” is pretty flexible depending on your stage of life, income, etc., but if you imagine a situation where someone in the church wrongs you to the tune of about one month’s rent, that’s a decent guideline. It’s the kind of amount that hurts, but you’re not going to be destitute as a result.

Paul’s main point is that being in relationship is central to living a Christian life. When we bring a lawsuit against someone, we are saying that we are willing to destroy our relationship with them in order to win the suit. Even if you’re clearly in the right, and the other person is being unjust, you have a duty to try and build that relationship – and maintain peace within the church – that is more important than getting whatever financial outcome you “deserve”. Take a longer view, realise that the things of this world are transient, and move on. If you obsess over “winning” this kind of battle, you’re focussing on the wrong things. In a minor civil case between friends and family, the lawyers may win but both parties are going to lose.

Is there a better way? Well, Paul says that there should be wisdom enough in the Church to solve these kinds of disputes through arbitrage and mediation. Ideally, both parties will be interested in reconciliation, and will abide by the advice of the elders in the church. But this also has implications for the status of God’s law in relation to civil law. Jesus is very clear on obedience to civil authority as a general rule, and that civil (secular) rulers should be respected in their appropriate areas of authority. But in our personal lives, God’s word is more important, and there are usually points at which civil law and Church guidance differ. Paul is saying that you subvert the authority of the Church when you take your dispute to a civil court – particularly if you seek a ruling that you would not get from the Church.

Paul’s final point is that taking your fellow Christian to court over a minor dispute is a bad witness to the rest of the world. As Christians, we need to be aware of how our actions may influence the attitudes of non-Christians around us.

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Related posts:

Revisiting the Law

Matters of interpretation

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Book Review: Healing is a Choice, by Stephen Arterburn

Healing Is a Choice

Ten Decisions That Will Transform Your Life & Ten Lies That Can Prevent You From Making Them

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by Stephen Arterburn

Published by Thomas Nelson, paperback edition

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I picked up Healing is a Choice with some serious reservations – I’m afraid that the title really sounded like it was saying, “If you’re not getting better, it’s your fault”. I was delighted to find as I read through it that the author’s central message is quite the opposite: as he re-iterates at the end of every chapter, healing is a choice, but it is God’s choice. What Arterburn focusses on is the decisions we can make and actions that we can take to remove the barricades that can hold us back from experiencing that healing.

He does not say that “If you follow these steps you’ll experience healing”. The message of the book is rather, “These things can hold back what God wants to do in your life, and even if it is not his will to heal you physically, these are things that you should do anyway.”

The book is broken into ten chapters, each looking at an aspect of the healing process. The chapters are framed around a choice that we can make, and a corresponding lie that runs counter to that choice. So the chapter on reflecting on our painful experiences and dealing with past hurts is paired with the lie that “Time heals all wounds”; and the chapter on getting help and support from others is paired with the lie that “I can just figure this out on my own.” It’s a good structure in that it promotes a healing choice and simultaneously warns of the dangerous cultural myth that keeps us from making that choice. There is a limited degree of overlap between some of the chapters, but I found that to be a useful re-inforcement rather than repetitive.

Reading the book for review purposes was interesting:the format of each chapter is based around teaching and activities to help the reader work through their pain and hurts. Not currently being at a point where I needed healing, the activities were less appropriate for me, but I think that they would be very useful in a group or individual therapy setting. This emphasis on practicality runs throughout the book. In the chapter on forgiveness, there are sample letters that the reader might like to use as a structure for asking forgiveness from someone. In the chapters on reflection and drawing from the past, there are guided journaling activities. There are prayers at the end of each chapter, though which the reader can ask God for help with the particular issue under discussion.

It is common for authors to include stories from their own past in any self-help book, but they are generally limited to the past tense: “I used to have problems, but now, thanks to my secret formula, my life is blissful and perfect!” Arterburn does not go down that path. He is willing to include recent disasters from his own life, personal experiences of pain and failure and be open about the process of healing that he had to go through – and is still going through. I found this openness refreshing.

Importantly, the book is very God-centred. There is a clear and consistent message that healing is what God does, and the decisions and actions that Arterburn recommends are all backed up by appropriate and well-interpreted scripture and biblical principles.

I enjoyed Healing is a Choice, and I would recommend it to people who are struggling to work through their own hurts or who are helping others to work through theirs. I think it would be particularly useful in a group-therapy context, and while I can’t claim any personal experitise in grief therapy or similar fields, I believe that working through the book over the course of months with fellow travellers would be a healing and rewarding journey.

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Full disclosure: I received this book free from the publisher through the BookSneeze®.com book review program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own.

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Desecrating the Temple: The challenge to literalists

I really think that those who endorse a “plain reading”, strictly literalist interpretation of the Bible are missing out on some of the most awesome stuff that God has given us the Scripture. Let me give a bit of background to explain what I mean:

I was recently asked to preach on Mark 13, in which Jesus describes the end times (and also some more imminent times). It’s a complex chapter and I’m not going to try and unpack all of it here, but I was particularly struck by his description of the Temple desecration. Jesus starts by saying that the Temple will be destroyed, torn apart block by block, and also says that the fulfillment of this prophecy will give the listeners confidence in what he tells them about the end times. The destruction of the Temple will happen soon, in the lifetimes of his listeners, and then they will know that what he says about his second coming is also true.

So why do I say that this is a challenge to a literalist reading of Scripture? Well, let’s look at what Jesus says. He warns the listeners to flee from the destruction, and he does it using these words:

“When you see ‘the abomination that causes desolation’ standing where it does not belong—let the reader understand—then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains.” (Mark 13:14, NIV)

The bit that I want to focus on is is expression, “the abomination that causes desolation”. The abomination that he’s talking about is a perversion of a holy thing: in the simplest sense, it’s the referring to an incident shortly after the Romans broke the seige of Jerusalem in 70 AD, and the Roman general Titus placed an idol on the site of the Temple. So that seems easy enough to understand with a plain reading of the text.

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But there is more to it: Jesus follows up that expression by saying, “let the reader understand”, which seems a very odd remark. Why does he say “reader” instead of “listener”? Note that this is not an editorial insertion from the writer of Mark, this is a quote from Jesus speaking to his disciples. Jesus’ reference to “reader” is his way of pointing out the historical parallels with his prophecy: his expression “the abomination that causes desolation” is in fact a direct reference to the book of Daniel, which his disciples – being dilligent readers of the Hebrew scriptures – would understand. Daniel wrote in about 536 BC, and one of his prophecies foretold the invasion of Israel by Antiochus IV Epiphanies, who sacked Jerusalem in 168 BC and sacrificed a pig to Zeus on the altar of the temple. Nearly 400 years before this event, Daniel prophesied about it thus:

“His armed forces will rise up to desecrate the temple fortress and will abolish the daily sacrifice. Then they will set up the abomination that causes desolation.” (Dan 11:31, NIV)

Now, this is the textual allusion that Jesus is making to “the reader”, but he is also talking about the end times and his return as described in the Revelation. In the apocalyptic setting of Mark 13, where Jesus is also warning against false prophets and false claimants to the second coming, the “the abomination that causes desolation” can further be taken as a description of the ultimate exemplar of its type, the Antichrist. In Revelation the Antichrist is a perverted version of the Christ, the ultimate false prophet, the abomination that causes desolation for all who follow him.

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There are many more layers to this passage, but I hope that is sufficient to illustrate my point. There are at least three levels to what Jesus is saying here, and his remark “let the reader understand” indicates that he was intending his prophecy to be understood on multiple levels. This is a powerful and important passage, it’s not simply a foretelling of the Roman destruction of the Temple. But if we restrict ourselves to a rigidly literalist reading of the text, we cannot possibly unravel the full extent of what Jesus is telling us here.

Of course I’m not advocating any silly post-modernist “every viewpoint is equally valid” rubbish. But it’s vital to realise that the Biblical texts were written on multiple levels, and usually have multiple layers of meaning.

A literalist reading risks losing much of the richness that God has given us in his Word.

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Related posts:

The power of narrative

Revisiting the Law

Matters of interpretation

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Revisiting the Law

Recently, I’ve been reading through the Old Testament. I haven’t read the latter books of the Pentateuch for a while, so it was an interesting experience. The Pentateuch makes up the first five books of the Bible: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy, and also comprises the Jewish Torah. This collection is also referred to as the Books of the Law, which is what Jesus is talking about when he mentions “the Law and the Prophets” (e.g. Matt. 5:17, Matt. 7:12).

Genesis and the first half of Exodus are largely composed of narrative, but from that point on there are indeed large chunks of detailed instruction from God which dominate the books of Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. And when you hear people talking vaguely about “all those crazy rules and stuff in the Bible”, it’s generally the last three books of the Pentateuch that they have in mind. So as I worked my way through these books, I was expecting to find an endless list of obscure and arbitrary prohibitions.

In contrast, I was delighted at just how sensible all the laws are. But there are a few important things to bear in mind as you read them.

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The Laws of Moses were given to a people who had been slaves in a foreign land for 400 years, and were now being moulded into a new nation. The Law is not there to restrict the Israelites’ freedom, it is God’s gift to them to help them live in harmony and build a successful society. Also, as God’s chosen people, they need special instruction on how to worship God. So most of the laws are focussed on teaching the nation how to interact with each other and with God.

But even with that proviso, there are a few laws which seem a little odd. There are two more things that we need to understand about the function of the Law:

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Firstly, as God’s people, chosen to be set apart for Him, it was important that the Israelites did not become corrupted with the religious practices of other nations.

The principal concern in this regard was keeping them separate from the influences of Canaanite religion, which was rife in the country to which God was leading them. Canaanite religious practices centred around worship of Baal, the god of thunder and fertility, and the bringer of rain; and Asherah (also called Athirat), who was the mother – and also consort – of Baal. (Another of the regulars in the Canaanite pantheon was Anat, the virgin goddess of war and strife, who was both wife and sister of Baal). A large part of Canaanite religious practice involved trying to increase fertility by bringing together objects associated with Asherah and those which represented Baal, so that their “sympathetic magic” would simulate Baal having sex with Asherah and thus increase the harvest.

Kinky, I know. But the point of this whole deviant diversion is that the laws which seem most arbitrary to us are ones like “Don’t wear clothes made of wool and linen” (Deut. 22:11), or “Don’t boil a young goat in its mother’s milk” (Ex. 34:26). The modern response to those passages is, respectively, “Why not?”, or “Why on earth would anyone do that in the first place?”. In each case, the principle behind those sort of injunctions is all about avoiding the idolatrous Canaanite religious practices centred on Baal and Asherah.

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Secondly, the laws are not like a modern penal code; they are not meant to be exhaustive. Instead, they function paradigmatically, by giving examples of the kind of behaviour that God wants from His people.

This is why the Israelites are instructed, for instance, to “Build a parapet around the roof of your house” (Deut. 22:8). The custom among the Near Eastern civilisations was for guests to sleep on the roof of the house (which was flat), and the instruction here is to make sure that they may do so safely without worrying about falling off if they roll over in their sleep. It is a paradigmatic example of the kind of concern for others that God wants us to show. Instructions about leaving gleanings in the field (Lev. 19:9-10) are an example of offering welfare and charity to the poor and destitute, but they also illustrate a principle of charity that is equally relevant even if we are not farmers.

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For a more thorough treatment of reading the Law in context, I strongly recommend Chapter 9 of How To Read the Bible For All Its Worth, by Gordon Fee and Douglas Stuart.

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Related posts:

The power of narrative

Matters of interpretation

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Doing a little mythbusting…

Hard to believe that in such an intellectually advanced age there are still some who cling tenaciously to the notion that “Jesus was not a real historical figure”, but apparently the light of education has still not penetrated all the deep corners.

Should be unfortunate enough to find yourself accosted by denialists, you may find this essay series by James Hannam useful. Hannam writes in his introduction:

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“The thesis that Jesus never existed has hovered around the fringes of research into the New Testament for at least a century but it has never been accepted as a mainstream theory. This is for good reason. It is simply a bad hypothesis based on arguments from silence, special pleading, and an awful lot of wishful thinking. It is ironic that certain atheists will buy into this idea and leave all their pretensions of critical thinking behind…

In this four-part series, it is not my intention to study the minutiae of the various arguments. Instead, I will focus on three central contentions often advanced in discussions about Jesus. These are 1) the lack of secular references,  2) the alleged similarities to paganism, and 3) the silence of St. Paul.”

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Hannam deals with each of these contentions in a highly readable and well-researched series of essays. Read the rest of Is Jesus Christ a Myth? here:

Part 1  |  Part 2  |  Part 3  |  Part 4

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Hannam holds degrees in physics and history from Oxford and London universities, and his doctorate in the history of science from Cambridge University, and recently published God’s Philosophers: How the Medieval World Laid the Foundations of Modern Science, the first history of medieval science written for the layperson. (You can also read more from him at Quodlibeta).

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Related posts:

Faith: reflecting on evidence

A theoretical faith

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Strength in diversity

At my church we’re currently hosting a cricket tournament.

Basically, a few friends were bored in the wet and cold winter months, and decided to convert the church hall (which was already carpeted) into an indoor cricket facility. One thing led to another, and suddenly we were hosting a tournament with 10 teams from all over the city and had sparked a community of over 100 people (and probably a dozen nationalities) who get together up to three times a week to hang out and play some friendly (but very competitive) cricket.

Which got me thinking about denominations.

See, although most of the matches take place on Wednesday and Thursday nights, we sometimes use Sunday as a make-up day. One of the other teams involved in the tournament is from another local church, and they are the only team which doesn’t play the Sunday games – because their pastor said they shouldn’t. On the other hand, my church is actively running a competition on Sundays.

And that is why I love the diversity of denominations in the Church.

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The defining criterion for inclusion into the Church is pretty simple: if you affirm the three ecumenical creeds, you’re a Christian church. This benchmark for inclusion does two important things:

Firstly, the creeds describe the primary doctrines which define Christianity. They set the minimum requirement: if you are not willing to sign on to everything in the creeds, you’re not a Christian church.

Secondly, the creeds set the limits as to which doctrines may be considered primary. If it’s not in the creeds, it does not affect inclusion into the Church.

This is incredibly important.

The primary articles of faith give us a common understanding on which to base our discussion. If I accept the divinity of Jesus and you insist that he was merely human, we are starting from fundamentally different points, and until that division is reconciled we can go no further.

But having accepted the primary articles, the Church can tolerate disagreement on any other issues. There is space within it to discuss, to debate, and even to diverge. We don’t need to have common consensus on everything, and Christians do not need to be carbon copies.

Because we all accept the primary doctrines as a common foundation, there is diversity without division.

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Infant baptism or adult?

We can agree to disagree.

Purgatory, annihilationism or universal reconciliation?

We can agree to disagree.

Transubstantiation or symbolic fellowship?

We can agree to disagree.

Young-Earth creationism, guided or Darwinian evolution?

We can agree to disagree.

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I’ve prayed in ancient cathedrals, and had communion on top of a mountain.

I’ve had attended church services with incense and Latin liturgies, and also services consisting entirely of freestyle drumming.

I’ve been to churches where they use grape juice for the Eucharist, and churches where they’ll buy you a beer after the service.

I’ve experienced the inspiring beauty of monastic Taizé singing, and I’ve worshipped with electric guitars.

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Within the sprawling, expansive, vibrant and all-embracing Church, there is space for the traditionalist and the radical, for the poet and the scientist, for the broken and the lost.

There is space for me.

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Note:

Speaking of diversity, several bloggers have banded together to create Christian Diversity, a new project to promote inter-denominational dialogue and fellowship. On that site, writers are collaborating to explore different Christian perspectives on a range of theological issues. Check it out!

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Related posts:

Anne Rice and hypocrisy in the Church

Serious, not fanatical

Religion, sex and truth claims

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Sex and science: Discuss

Sex and science: we need to talk about both. And not just on this blog – we need to talk about them in church and at home, too.

Both sex and science are hugely powerful and important. Both have the potential to be wonderful, or to be terribly destructive. Responsibility and maturity are needed before we can safely handle either.

This doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t teach our kids about sex, or science for that matter. Interest and curiosity (in both areas) are aroused from a young age, so let’s rather start the discussions early. Parents and pastors need to be willing to engage openly with both subjects.

But we need to be honest about both. Eventually, kids are going to grow up and engage with the wider world, and the wider world is drenched in both science and sex.

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Choose your perversion

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Teaching kids that sex is bad or wrong or evil is ultimately destructive. At best, they will grow up with all sorts of psychological baggage that will inhibit their ability to engage in healthy and fulfilling sex lives when they eventually get married. At worst, this sort of teaching will just make sex more attractive and alluring, and the desire to experiment will be irresistable. We’ve all seen the results of irresponsible sexual experimentation, and it’s tragic. But this does not mean that sex itself is bad, or that it should always be avoided. It just means that we need to be aware of what defines a responsible and safe context within which to engage with the power of sex.

I’ve quoted elsewhere the observation by Vox Day that rebellion against religious teachings on sexuality can be a powerful incentive to start ignoring God:

“The idea that there is any rational basis for atheism is further damaged by the way in which so many atheists become atheists during adolescence, an age that combines a tendency toward mindless rebellion as well as the onset of sexual desires that collide with religious strictures on their satisfaction.”

But this does not necessarily indicate a mindless nihilism. If the adolescent has never been given an understanding of why there are limits on how, where and when sexual desires should be fulfilled, then there is no reason not to discard such strictures in favour of a raging libido. “I really REALLY want to do this, and I don’t find myself with any compelling arguments opposing it, so why not?”

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Which brings us to science. Francis Collins, former head of the Human Genome Project, writes about his own transition from a nominally Christian upbringing to an atheist worldview:

“I became an atheist because as a graduate student studying quantum physics, life seemed to be reducible to second-order differential equations. Mathematics, chemistry and physics had it all. And I didn’t see any need to go beyond that. Frankly, I was at a point in my young life where it was convenient for me to not have to deal with a God. I kind of liked being in charge myself.”

We note that there is the adolescent rebellion thing again, but there also another motivation: Collins was exposed to new scientific concepts that seemed to explain everything and left no room for God. This is always a danger if a student has never learned to recognise the limits of science and how these limits relate to theology. (As a general rule, science is good on the “How?” questions and proximate causes; it’s really bad on the “Why?” questions and ultimate causes. Happy footnote: Collins later rejected the bankruptcy of atheism and recognised the intellectual fulfillment offered by the Christian worldview).

In particular, it’s very common for explanations of mechanism (such as scientific theories of evolution, quantum physics or cosmology) to be falsely imbued with the quality of agency. Although this is an elementary error, it is a very frequent one: we see it from countless first-year university students, and also from eminent scientists such as biologists Richard Dawkins and Francis Crick, and chemist Peter Atkins. A well-known example comes from Dawkins’ book The Blind Watchmaker. Responding to William Paley’s classic “argument from design” (in which Paley suggested that the apparent design of living creatures points to their designer in the same way that a watch points to a watchmaker), Dawkins writes:

“Natural selection, the blind, unconscious automatic process which Darwin discovered, and which we now know is the explanation for the existence and apparently purposeful form of all life, has no purpose in mind. It has no mind and no mind’s eye. It does not plan for the future. It has no vision, no foresight, no sight at all. If it can be said to play the role of watchmaker in nature, it is the blind watchmaker.”

It’s stirring rhetoric, but if you actually read it closely enough it stops making any sense. Philosophically, this is an example of a category error – what Dawkins does is substitute a mechanism (natural selection) for an agent (the Creator). In other words, to return to the metaphor, he has found a watch spring, and concluded that the watch did not need a designer. Indeed, he goes further: he claims that the watch spring built the whole watch.

This is ridiculous.  But in the absence of any previous exposure to evolutionary theory, it’s easy to get carried away by the prose until you don’t even notice that it is no longer logically coherent. Of course the Darwinian paradigm is a wonderful framework for structuring biological research, but it still has limits, and Dawkins has gone way beyond what evolutionary science can claim. Likewise, gravity is splendid for predicting the movement of celestial bodies, but it’s useless for explaining magnetism.

Like a hormonally-addled teenager on a hot date, we can be swept along on emotion rather than rationality if we have not learned to recognise the proper limitations of science.

Scientific repression is no solution. There are very real advantages to living with the products of scientific progress, and anybody can see that (although there are certainly dangers as well). But as with sex, we need to teach kids to engage with science responsibly.

And offering a silly substitute like “creation science” instead of the real thing will never be intellectually satisfying, much like a subscription to Playboy will never be a replacement for a loving, intimate relationship.

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If we can start talking to kids about why a sexually promiscuous lifestyle is destructive, they are much more likely to actually value and protect their sexuality.

If we can start talking to kids about why Dawkins, Crick, Atkins, Harris etc. are scientifically off their collective rockers, we won’t have to worry that one day we’ll discover a copy of The God Delusion shoved furtively beneath the mattress.

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Related posts:

Hypothetically speaking

“Creation Science” isn’t.

Overlap in the Magisterium?

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Anne Rice and hypocrisy in the Church

The media has been all aflutter over the past weeks about the announcement by novelist Anne Rice that she’s “quitting Christianity, but not Christ”. As Rice posted on her blog:

“My faith in Christ is central to my life. My conversion from a pessimistic atheist lost in a world I didn’t understand, to an optimistic believer in a universe created and sustained by a loving God is crucial to me. But following Christ does not mean following His followers. Christ is infinitely more important than … [C]hristianity and always will be, no matter what Christianity is, has been, or might become.”

In short, it seems that Rice is frustrated to breaking point with hypocrisy in the Church.

Here’s the thing, though:

Jesus also hates the hypocrisy of Christians.

During Jesus’ earthly ministry he had a great deal to say to the scribes and the Pharisees, the “church leaders” of the day. Here’s Jesus as reported in the Gospel of Matthew:

Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples: “The teachers of the law and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat. So you must obey them and do everything they tell you. But do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they preach. (Mt 23:1-3, NIV)

Jesus’ strongest condemnation was reserved for those who teach the truth but fail to live it out.

“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of dead men’s bones and everything unclean. In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness.” (Mt 23:27-28, NIV)

Let there be no mistake: Jesus has no time for hypocrisy within the Church.

At the same time, Jesus instructs us to live a life delineated by firm principles. There are concrete instructions about correct behaviour as well as about correct motives and attitudes. And yet, the Bible teaches us that we are all flawed and will fail to meet theses standards. Jesus is compassionate towards those who struggle to live according to God’s will for their lives. But the vital step is accepting that we ourselves are flawed.

I suspect that anyone who has been involved with Christianity has had experience of hypocrisy. But I suspect that anyone who has been involved in any human affairs has had experience of hypocrisy. If we set ourselves any sort of moral standards at all, we will fail to meet them. Perhaps George Thorogood had the answer to hypocrisy: start off by claiming to be “Bad to the Bone”, and you’ll never fall short of your standards.

But these are not the standards that Jesus asks us to aim for.

I’ve been involved in the Church for a couple of decades, including several denominations and several countries. I’ve seen people failing to live up to their own teaching. More to the point, I’ve seen people failing to live up to Jesus’ teaching. (Shocking revelation: I am one of those people!)

But I’ve also seen a great number of people trying to live up to Jesus teaching. Sometimes they do a pretty good job, sometimes they do a terrible job. They’re never perfect, but they keep trying. They also keep admitting that they have failed and ask God’s help to keep trying.

This attitude of humility is perhaps the key to avoiding hypocrisy. Jesus didn’t rebuke the scribes and the Pharisees for failing to live up to God’s law: he rebuked them for pretending to do so.

Perhaps the most succinct expression of humility and acknowledgment of our own fallen nature came from the inimitable G. K. Chesterton. When invited by The Times newspaper, along with several other prominent authors, to write an essay on the topic “What’s Wrong with the World?”, Chesterton replied with a letter:

Dear Sirs,

I am.

Sincerely yours,
G. K. Chesterton

This is the essence of humility. It is an open admission of our failings, with no excuses or self-justifications. (Incidentally, Chesterton did later write a full-length essay on the subject, which I highly recommend).

As the apostle John writes:

If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word has no place in our lives. (1 John 1:8-10, NIV)

I understand Anne Rice’s frustration with hypocrisy in the Church, but I choose to respond differently. I remain within the Church, and if I feel that it has strayed, I will attempt to correct and support it from within.

More importantly, I recognise that I can also be hypocritical and corrupt, and I rely on my brothers and sisters in Christ to correct and support me in my walk.

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Related posts:

Serious, not fanatical

Living a good and/or Christian life

Modelled behaviour

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Modelled behaviour

“The church is a hospital for sinners, not a museum for saints.”

The line above is oft-quoted and, I believe, captures elegantly a fundamental truth of Christianity. Rather than a mechanism for personal improvement, the Christian doctrine of Grace states that we are fundamentally unable to meet God’s standards through exemplary living.  Oh sure, there will be improvements in our characters as our relationship with Christ deepens. But such improvement must be measured from the baseline of our personal starting point, not an arbitrary societal average.

As Timothy Keller writes in The Reason for God:

“The mistaken belief that a person must “clean up” his or her own life in order to merit God’s presence is not Christianity. This means, though, that the church will be filled with immature and broken people who still have a long way to go emotionally, morally and spiritually.”

Keller later makes a related point:

“It is often the case that people whose lives have been harder and who are “lower on the character scale” are more likely to recognise their need for God and turn to Christianity. So we would expect that many Christian’s lives would not compare well to those of the non-religious.”

This got me thinking about models of behaviour. (Hey, simulation modelling is what I do – it’s not always easy to separate work from the rest of life!)

If we assume that:

1. Christianity is true

2. Relationship with Jesus improves our character and behaviour

…but also that:

3. Spiritually and emotionally broken people may be more willing to recognise and accept their need for God’s grace.

…then I believe that we can arrive at a theoretical model which accounts for much of the observed behaviour in the Church. I see Christians who are broken and unethical, but I also observe Christians who are magnificently good, generous and loving. All of these are consistent with this framework.

Of course, I don’t for one second imply that this proves anything, and my belief that Christianity is true is totally unrelated to this line of reasoning. But I do think that it has a certain amount of explanatory power for the observed state of the Church – and for my own status as both a flawed human and a follower of Christ…

Emerging Heresy

It makes a change to be considering heresy in its original context. I mean, usually when I call someone a filthy heretic it’s because he has claimed that consoles are a better platform for gaming than PCs, or something equally worldly. (Yes, disputing Lord of the Rings as a work of genius and towering pillar of literature would also earn you that kind of label). But it’s perhaps symptomatic of the extent to which we can get caught up in the material world that such labels begin to lose their power.

Fortunately, we no longer live in a society where mob rule determines the heretical and reserves the right to burn at the stake those found guilty, but the reasons that this is a good thing are not necessarily obvious. Let me clarify – mob rule is bad, and killing people is bad. People taking their human desires and prejudices and justifying them in the name of God is definitely very bad. But taking spiritual concerns seriously enough that you are driven to rage and passion by them is not necessarily bad. Jesus didn’t sigh and shrug at the money changers in the temple, he stormed through them, overturning tables and driving them before him. (He didn’t act violently towards them either – note that restraint does not exclude passion).

On to the real meat of the question, though – what of our emergent heresy? It’s tricky to judge, really. We would be foolish to cast out and ignore two millennia of theology which pre-date us, but at the same time, there’s a fair amount of chaff (not to mention goat poop) mixed in with the wheat in the history of Christianity, so to emerge (or even diverge) from certain aspects of the established church is perhaps desirable. But I feel that the emergent phenomenon which I see around me is not one of leaving things behind, but rather embracing more. I see an increased appreciation for things which tend to fall outside the mainstream consideration – creativity, primal cultures, alternative expressions of worship and the real potential of the information age. It is not so much exclusive as inclusive.

Of course, we must be careful what we include. And there is certainly wisdom and caution required in this. Mostly, there is a need for guidance from God in this. Remaining close to God and being led by Him through the wilderness which we are now exploring, no journey can be heretical. But we need to stick close – we are in a land where many paths look similar, and only some are good to walk upon.

It’s like on the borders of the old maps, where the unknown lands were simply marked with “Here be Dragons” – there truly are dangers lurking in the intellectual wilderness. But God is the ultimate dragonslayer – stick close, and no harm shall come to you.

This post is part of a synchroblog:

Aratus – The Gender of the Creator and Face forward
Cobusvw – Conversing with the heretics
FakeExpressionsOfTheUnknown Who’s Heresy
Liquid Light – Coming out a heretic emerges
Mike Smith – Emerging Heresy
Nic Paton – The Lif Cycle of Heresy and The Blessings of Heresy
Roger Saner Towards a heretical orthodoxy
Ryan Peters – Calling the “H” word and dropping the “H” bomb
Steve Hayes Cult
Tim Victor – Confessions of a heretic

All in agreement…

Yesterday we were playing drums and generally getting lost in rhythm and worship, and we started using a wooden whistle from the Rio Carnival – the sort that would normally be blown, in the words of one participant, by “a bronzed bikini-clad Brazillian beach babe”. And we were discussing the focus of our developing tribe, finding common ground and starting points of reference – foci on which we agreed and would like to build. In the discussion was a strong emphasis on the openness to inclusion (where appropriate, d’accord) of cultural elements and practices which may not necessarily fall within the accepted pantheon (if you’ll excuse the pun) of Christian traditional activities.

Of course, a Brazillian carnival would not necessarily be the precise cultural exercise that would would try to include. But at its core, it is a celebration and festival involving dance, music and good food and drink, which are surely elements of any culture. Indeed, are these not elements which are central to our humanity?

“That whistle is an instrument of the Devil!” thunders the preacher, pounding his fist on a large bible with a black leather cover. Sweat glistens on his brow, his face is red and contorted with passion. “It is made for a grotesque festival of lust and godlessness, a feast of destruction and sin!” he cries.

But Satan has no instruments of his own. All things are created by and ordained by God. And all people, of all cutures and nations, are in with God if they want to be. “the Scriptures looked forward to this time when God would declare the Gentiles to be righteous because of their faith. God proclaimed this good news to Abraham long ago when he said, ‘All nations will be blessed through you’.” (Gal 3:8)

Thus it is not the whistle, or the food, or the person which is inherently wicked and perverse, but the practice and use to which it is put. And so why could we not put the same instruments to a different purpose? If the very body of Mary Magdalene, for instance, which had been entirely dedicated towards ungodly purposes, could be redeemed and made acceptable to God, is it so hard to believe that we could use a carnival whistle in worship? I mean, Christmas is pretty much a pagan festival, but the church certainly tries its hardest to extract something Christian from it…

Of course, there are certain caveats to this, as further mentioned in Galatians, where Paul exhorts us to be pure in our intent. “If pleasing people were my goal, I would not be Christ’s servant.” (Gal 1:10) But with that in mind, it’s all potentially useful for the sacred. Paul himself was an example of an instrument of wickedness reworked to divine purpose, which he points out later in that letter. Much of his text expresses concern for those who have come to know God, and yet still fall back into ways of ritual and law, where they should be exploring new freedom and joy in their faith, unbounded by petty restrictions of culture and tradition. He goes so far as to call the Galatians “foolish” and “bewitched”, in their habit of returning to routine and legalistic forms of worship, rather than following the spirit of their faith.

Anyway, enough with the heavy stuff. The point is, if you want to do your thang in worship by dancing naked in the desert while banging a drum, you go do that – just don’t try to impress anyone with it. Oh, and take some suncream.

All in agreement?