Just Wondering

Off to Wordpress

2007-06-19T22:15:00.002-06:00

Well I've heard enough critique of my medieval blogger look so I've decided to switch over to Wordpress. You can now find me here. Those of you who are kind enough to link to me may want to update your links. Thanks.

What I Wish Dawkins Would Have Said

2007-06-18T13:27:00.000-06:00

Richard Lewontin, a Harvard-based evolutionary biologist, Marxist, atheist:

‘We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism.

It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is an absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door."

Richard Lewontin, "Billions and Billions of Demons,"
The New York Review, p. 31, 9 January 1997.

The Image of God

2007-06-15T15:12:00.000-06:00

"Against any materialist reductionism, Christians claim that God has seen fit to make room in the universe for creatures who bear some of the glory of their Maker, and who, even on the rainiest Monday morning of their lives, look something like God. We image God in our personhood, communion, responsibility, dignity, virtue, suffering and freedom."

Cornelius Plantinga Jr.
Engaging God's World

A Dark Day

2007-06-14T09:39:00.000-06:00

Just when I thought it couldn't get any worse: this. I may be making that move to the Senators bandwagon permanent.

Volf Revisited

2007-06-12T18:22:00.000-06:00

I've just come across a print version of Miroslav Volf's paper, "A Voice of One's Own: Public Faith in a Pluralistic World". This is a portion of last October's Laing Lectures, delivered at Regent College in Vancouver and was the subject of a number of posts here last year. One quote to give a bit of the flavour:

"The pluralist account of relations among religions is incoherent. I don’t mean here that it never ends up making good on its promise of including everyone on equal terms, although this is true, too. Some religious group always ends up excluded, mainly because the teachings and practices of concrete religions are not only different but sometimes outright contradictory and stubbornly refuse to let themselves be interpreted as instances of an underlying sameness. We can expand the circle of the included, but we cannot avoid excluding—unless we declare every religion to be acceptable in advance. From my perspective, this is as it ought to be; otherwise we would end up having to indiscriminately affirm anything and everything. Pluralists shouldn’t pretend, however, to have overcome religious exclusivism."

Why the Stanley Cup Belongs in Canada

2007-06-11T13:19:00.001-06:00

Watch this and lament. Arnold Schwarzenegger is unforgettable. Watch him as he excitedly anticipates the punchline of his inspiring summary of the Ducks' cup run. Anaheim as the new Hockeytown... somehow I doubt it.

In Their Own Words

2007-06-10T10:12:00.000-06:00

For those who are interested, Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath chatted last week at the Oxford Literary Festival. You can listen here.

On the question of morality, McGrath properly pushes Dawkins to describe the ultimate ground for morality in a world without an ultimate purpose. Dawkins admits that science can't proscribe moral behaviour but predictably goes on to describe that even if science isn't up for the task, neither is religion. He makes a curious reference, however, to the New Testament ethical perspective being more "agreeable" than the Old Testament, judging based on some kind of basic moral consensus that apparently exists simply by virtue of the fact that we're 21st century 'progressive' people.

As to the origins of this 'moral consensus' Dawkins says he "doesn't have time" to go into it" but he's quite certain it's not religion (I'm guessing some version of meme theory). He decries "cherry-picking" from the Bible or the Qur'an, keeping the "good bits" throwing out the "bad bits" but he never discusses the reference point for the terms "good" and "bad". All we can guess is that the simple fact that we happen to live in the 21st century means that we understand morality better than any who have gone before us. Quite a leap of faith, I'd say.

This is the last time either of these names will come up on this blog. I promise. Maybe.

via: be thinking

Thoughts on Tradition

2007-05-31T17:42:00.000-06:00

A couple of ideas have been bouncing around for the past couple of weeks, mainly because of my participation in a class on Eastern Christianity as well as my attendance at the annual meeting of the Canadian Evangelical Theological Society. Both of these experiences brought the question of what role tradition plays (or ought to play) in the life of the church.

As I thought about some of these questions I was struck by how little emphasis is placed on the past in most evangelical circles. We don't, for the most part, see ourselves as standing in a living tradition, faithfully preserving what was passed on to us. We certainly don't see ourselves as being obligated to pass on what we have received and would recoil at the thought of our church tradition providing a (normative!) compass for how we live out the faith today.

Evangelicalism (or free-church Protestantism) tends to have a view of history that emphasizes a pristine New Testament church that fell into corruption and apostasy over the next few centuries, only to be rescued from medieval corruption and superstition by Martin Luther (or Menno Simons) some 14 centuries down the road. All that matters historically happened in the first few years of the church's life and the years since the Reformation. As one observer observed, 'it's like evangelicals think they can pole-vault across centuries of Christian history and have unvarnished access to the New Testament church."

So why does this matter? I'm only starting to think about this question (and I'm skeptical of the inevitable suggestions that what's needed is a return to this church or that) but I think D.H. Williams, a presenter at this weekend's CETA conference, predicted the future well when (in 1999) he wrote,

"Free-church communions, especially independent and 'community'-type churches, (1) will increasingly proliferate a sectarian approach to the Christian faith, characterized by an ahistoricism and spiritual subjectivism... and (2) will be more susceptible to the influences of accommodating the church to a pseudo-Christian culture such that the uniqueness of the Christian identity is quietly and unintentionally traded away in the name of effective ministry."

McGrath on The Hour

2007-05-16T09:40:00.000-06:00

After last week's interview with Dawkins I was interested to see Alister McGrath show up on "The Hour" the other night (view it here). McGrath has written two books in response The God Delusion: Dawkins' God: Genes, Memes and the Meaning of Life and The Dawkins Delusion? Kudos to George for bringing on a Christian who actually speaks with a certain degree of authority on the subject instead of picking an easy target like so many are prone to doing when getting the 'Christian perspective'.

I'll be honest, I was disappointed with McGrath. He kept repeating that science was more 'interesting' with belief in God but, apart from a brief summary on the creation/evolution issue within Christianity, he didn't offer much of real substance. This is all the more frustrating because McGrath actually has asked very important questions about Dawkins' methodology and especially meme theory (see here for a critique of Dennett regarding memes and here for a critique Dawkins' overall argument). For those who are interested in a thoughtful and (in my opinion) convincing critique of some of Dawkins' core ideas, McGrath has lot to offer. It's just a shame that he didn't develop some of these ideas in this interview.

Stackhouse on Faith

2007-05-09T13:28:00.000-06:00

"Two mistakes about the concept of faith are common. The first is to think that faith is a peculiarly religious word and has nothing to do with everyday life. The second is to presume that faith has no relationship to knowledge, that the two stand as utterly separate categories of assent."

"No one exercises 'blind faith' in anything - or anyone. Everyone has a reason to believe what he or she believes, even if someone else thinks it to be an insufficient reason, even if it turns out to be a poorly grounded belief... Life for us humans involves risk, and the wise person is the one who does not seek certainty but, but seeks instead adequate reason to believe the best alternative available."

John Stackhouse, Humble Apologetics, 107.

Dawkins on The Hour

2007-05-08T13:02:00.000-06:00

Since I've had a bit of a fascination with Richard Dawkins' rise to prominence, I was interested to see him pop up on 'The Hour' last night (watch it here). George Stroumboulopoulos asks him the obvious first question: What's wrong with religious belief? to which Dawkins replies:

"It's a tragedy to base your life on something for which there is no evidence and never was any evidence, when the real truth is so wonderful."

One might hope that George might push him a bit on this point. Is there really no evidence? What counts as evidence? How do you respond to things that people of all faiths have historically pointed to as justification for belief? Instead George muses about the possibility of religion simply being 'what gets us through the night' and wonders whether or not Dawkins is just being too forceful in his particular view of things.

I liked Dawkins' response to this idea. He says, "Well no, for me, what matters is the truth," and later, "I think there's something more absolute about truth and I care about truth." I appreciated the recognition that the proper response to questions of this magnitude is not some kind of bland tolerance (which, at its worst, is a trivialization of all perspectives) but an actual effort to understand the way things really are.

In a curious little aside Dawkins actually admits there might be such a thing as 'moral truth' that would be somehow distinct from 'scientific truth' (although he seems to want to take the words back as soon as they escape). This would be a significant thing for someone like Dawkins to admit because it would beg some important questions about where 'truth' in the area of morality could come from in a worldview explicitly devoted to evolutionary naturalism.

At the end of the day the interview is an interesting snapshot into the way we talk about religion. On the subject of God, Dawkins wants to talk about truth while Stroumboloupoulos wants to talk about meaning. Obviously 12 minutes is not enough time to get into anything substantial but it would seem to me that the astounding claim that 'there has never been any evidence for God's existence' should at least take up the majority of the time. The fact that it is passed by without question is disappointing.

Forgiveness

2007-05-06T21:17:00.000-06:00

After a semester long delay, I finally finished N.T. Wright's Evil and the Justice of God. The biblical focus of the book will do little to convince the skeptic but it is an excellent summary of the Bible's presentation of what God has done (as opposed to what God has said) about the problem of evil. Wright nowhere attempts an explanation of the origin of evil (nor for that matter a definition of what evil is) but he begins where we all must with the reality of a world with a deeply ambiguous mixture of good and evil and the inevitable question: Now what?

What I found most interesting about this book was the final chapter where Wright describes forgiveness as God's chosen method for overcoming evil. Forgiveness is one of those words that can drift into ambiguity through overuse (especially in Christian circles) but I found Wright's take on it very refreshing. Instead of seeing forgiveness as the result of what happened on the cross, as if now that Jesus has died God is magically able to forgive us, Wright sees forgiveness as the means by which God has chosen to overcome evil.

He points out how forgiveness can work in relationships. Another person injures us in some way and puts us in the position where we can extend or refuse forgiveness. If we do take the risk of offering forgiveness we may find restoration in that particular relationship. But even if restoration is not immediate, forgiveness has the power to release us from the power that this injury has over us. We can be released from the bitterness and anger, as well as the burden of bearing our grievance from that point onward. In some mysterious way, forgiveness overcomes evil through refusing to pass it on, refusing to allow it to twist us into its own image.

This is obviously not easy and most of us can point to numerous times where we have found it much easier to withhold forgiveness than to offer it. But Wright's point is that this seems to be the way that God has chosen to overcome evil in the world. At the cross we see God taking the worst of evil upon himself and exhausting its power through forgiveness. There is an inner logic, then, between the forgiveness that God demands that we show toward one another and the forgiveness that God has offered to us. It is not some kind of transaction where we agree to believe in Jesus and God agrees to forgive our sins. God has chosen, in response to the evil that has infected the world, to forgive and this forgiveness will ultimately have the final word.

On to Athens!

2007-05-02T09:12:00.000-06:00

Liverpool vs Chelsea - Penalties
Uploaded by FootballHeaven

The Trials of Dwight (Hepburn Style)

2007-04-23T15:12:00.000-06:00

The last week of school was one of intrigue and suspense. In the middle of marking final exams my stapler went missing, a fact that was made all the more frustrating by the fact that I had used it not twenty minutes beforehand. I tore my office apart several times over but to no avail.

The two villains who absconded with my stapler are seen above. These young men and I have a shared appreciation for The Office and without my knowledge they had plotted an imitation of the episode in which an office worker's (and oh what an office worker) stapler ends up in Jello. For those who do not immediately sense the hilarity of this scenario all I can say is that the humour is very sophisticated and subtle. It takes months to appreciate the different nuances and hidden meanings.

After what must have been hours of determined labour these two were able to both learn how to make Jello and get my stapler into the midst of it. They sprung the surprise on me when our receptionist (a willing and cheerful accomplice) got me into the office under false pretences (something about an 'urgent matter that required my attention'). The entire episode was captured on video so my shock and amazement have been captured for posterity.

What can you say when confronted with such ingenuity and creativity? These are the things that you live to see in your students. The delight of young minds not only seeing a problem but creative ways of solving it as well. The determined and relentless pursuit of a lofty goal combined with an example of collaborative teamwork that would put NASA to shame. I had to wipe away a tear.

The story does have a happy ending in that Julie & Lana were provided with an unexpected sugar rush later that evening. While Julie looks less than enthusiastic in the picture above it is only because her father was trying to capture the moment instead of letting her dive face-first into the Jello. She has been reminding me of her brave rescue mission ever since ("Daddy, I got your stapler out of the Jello..." followed later with a disapproving, "that wasn't very nice of Clayton and Nick"). Lana soon abandoned the sophistication of her eating utensil and decided to use her hands instead. Her philosophy appeared to be that if at least a fraction of each handful made it into her mouth then this would be good enough for her.

So thanks guys for a memorable break in exam week. Thanks Jim Halpert for the inspiration and Dwight Schrute for the example of brave resistance in the face of trials. I underestimated these students. Next time I will estimate them.

It's Over (Thankfully)

2007-04-22T22:59:00.000-06:00

This will be the last hockey-related post for the 2006-2007. My sincere thanks to the Detroit Red Wings for ending the most pitiful and embarrassing display of hockey by any Flame team since the early 1990s. I didn't think it was possible but they managed to play as badly at home as they did in Detroit. That's a good sign: consistency between home and road performances is something that the Flames have struggled with a lot this year.

I'm reminded of Michael Scott's hunting expedition (see The Office, Season Two, Halloween) where he shot a deer in the leg and had to finish it off with a shovel. It was pretty gross (according to Michael) and it took about an hour but the pitiful animal was finally put out if it's misery. The Detroit Red Wings are Michael Scott. The Calgary Flames are the pathetic, miserable, mercifully departed deer.

Baby Steps

2007-04-19T23:52:00.000-06:00

I've been taking a bit of heat for my harsh assessment of the first two games of the Calgary/Detroit series so I thought I'd clarify my thoughts now that the Flames appear to have dragged themselves back into this series. From my perspective, trust was betrayed during the first two games of this series. Trust takes time to rebuild and I am not yet ready to declare forgiveness for the sins of games 1 & 2. Detroit was the scene of these heinous 'crimes against hockey' that were committed in the name of the flaming 'C'. If the Flames win in Detroit I will publicly revoke my previous post and admit that I was wrong. You heard it here first.

Wright on Lewis

2007-04-19T11:20:00.000-06:00

(via Think Christian):

I just came across an interesting retrospective on C.S. Lewis' Mere Christianity by N.T. Wright. Those who know me will find it entirely predictable that I would post on an article that binds together two writers who have significantly shaped my thinking, likely on more subjects than I am aware.

Wright characterizes Mere Christianity as a 'fine, but leaky building', structurally solid in most places but in danger of collapse in others. Wright's two main points of critique are Lewis' views on eschatology and (not surprisingly) his failure to understand Jesus' historical context. Since Mere Christianity was a significant lifeline in my own spiritual journey I remain a little wary of efforts to critique it.

I can appreciate Wright's critique on Lewis' view of Jesus. The Jesus that you meet in Mere Christianity does not seem all that rooted to the hopes and expectations of the people of Israel. This leads Wright to a dismissal of Lewis' famous 'liar, lunatic or Lord' argument for the divinity of Christ, a dismissal that I'm not totally sure I buy. He argues that Jesus wasn't claiming to be God when he offered to forgive sins, he was just offering outside the temple what everyone knew was only available inside the temple. As I read the gospels there seems to be a recurring theme that Jesus seems to casually do things that his contemporaries would have assumed only God could do. Forgiveness of sins is one of these but Jesus also reinterprets the entire OT law on the basis of his own authority.

Wright also critiques Lewis' vision of heaven, arguing that it sounds more like Platonic philosophy than New Testament theology. I think Wright may be splitting hairs on this one but there is probably some link between Lewis' idea of earth being the Shadowlands and Plato's impression that the material world was the shadow cast by the metaphysical world. I think you could read either Lewis or Wright and come up with a far more hopeful (and practical) view of the end than a lot of what passes for Christian eschatology today.

Wright comes out with a mixture of admiration and hesitancy in his assessment of Lewis' effort.

"Lewis himself would have been the first to say that of course his book was neither perfect nor complete, and that what mattered was that, if it brought people into the company, and under the influence (or “infection”) of Jesus Christ, Jesus himself would happily take over—indeed, that Jesus had been operating through the process all along, albeit through the imperfect medium of the apologist."

Introduction to Ethics

2007-04-18T08:07:00.000-06:00

Julie (while supervising her dad's navigation of the streets of Hepburn): "Daddy, God likes it when we don't run people over."

Go Sens Go

2007-04-16T16:57:00.000-06:00

Like many Flame fans I am wondering about the identity of this ECHL team that has apparently stolen some authentic looking Flames jerseys and decided to try to impersonate an NHL team for the past two games. I've got my search narrowed down to either the Gwinnett Gladiators or the Penascola Ice Pilots. If these are the actual members of the Calgary Flames then the only answer is here.

In light of this trainwreck of a playoff experience I have decided to abandon ship and throw my support behind the Ottawa Senators, a team which has managed to do the apparently impossible and get more than 15 shots in a game. I don't ask for much in terms of playoff performance. Just give me twenty shots and the impression that you've seen a pair of skates before.

The Poison of Hope?

2007-04-12T14:12:00.000-06:00

Another week, another cover story highlighting the ongoing atheistic revival. It appears that each of these stories raises the bar, beginning with musings on the conflict between God and Science and religion's role in opposing progress to the latest hypothesis (floated in Macleans magazine) that the idea of God is a poison that has produced most of the major problems that we face. To me, these arguments seem to be directed against crude caricatures of religious faith but the unfortunate reality is that many 'faith-heads' (as they are affectionately termed in this article) make the caricatures a little more plausible than they should be.

This latest article, however, introduced an objection to God that was new for me. Christopher Hitchens, author of an upcoming book called "God is not Great: Why Religion Poisons Everything," argues that the religious response to death (and by extension pain and suffering) is immoral because of its offer of false hope. According to Hitchens,

"Being told you're not really going to die is simply contemptible... Those who offer false consolation are false friends."

I'm intrigued by the idea of the offer of hope being immoral. Hitchens may be reacting against the tendency within some corners of Christendom to disengage from life here and now because of a 'hanging on for heaven' mentality. If this is the case then I would heartily agree. But there also seems to be some kind of basic opposition to the alleged 'dishonesty' of a position that holds to a hope that extends beyond this life. I'm not sure I understand this opposition but it may be a good springboard to clarify what exactly a 'religious response to death' ought to look like.

An interesting side note: I find it odd that both sides seem to view the 'bad guys' as winning the war and feel it necessary to crusade against them. 'Faith-heads' see the imminent moral demise of Western society and attribute it to the godless atheists. Dawkins and company fear that the priceless gains of secular liberalism (presumably freedom of conscience and behaviour) are genuinely threatened by a resurgent religious fundamentalism. With both of these villainous ideologies 'winning' it may be that the real losers are those stuck in the middle.

Willard's Acid Test

2007-04-10T14:22:00.000-06:00

"The acid test for any theology is this: Is the God presented one that can be loved heart, mind, soul and strength? If the thoughtful answer is; 'Not really,' then we need to look elsewhere or deeper."

I'm nearing the end of this year's introductory course where we go through many of the basics of Christian theology. I usually conclude by referring to the above quote by Dallas Willard (The Divine Conspiracy, 329) which makes a fairly pointed observation regarding the goal of all theological reflection.

I wonder if this is a good criterion to be using when it comes to the whole business of talking about God together. Is God required to be 'lovable' or does that put too much emphasis my particular wishes and needs? Yet at the heart of the Christian faith is Jesus' reminder that our only responsibility is to love God and the neighbour beside us (Matt 22:38-40). I have my own thoughts about the numerous different definitions of 'love' that are in circulation at a cultural level but the basic question of the link between our ideas of God and our love of God remains.

Face-lift

2007-04-04T15:33:00.000-06:00

Those who follow the happenings of Bethany College may be interested to check out our new website. There are still a few kinks to iron out so you may run into the odd dead link but overall I think the new look is good.

Holy Week, For the First Time

2007-04-02T08:06:00.000-06:00

Seeing the events of Holy Week through the eyes of a three year old is a truly delightful experience. I got to hear the following breathless summary after church yesterday morning:

"Daddy, Daddy, Jesus came alive!! The disciples killed him, but Jesus came alive!! First he had supper, then he died on the cross, now he's sitting on a rock and he lives with Noah!"

Recent Thoughts

2007-03-27T11:30:00.000-06:00

Forgive the relative silence in recent days. The pile of marking on my desk is making posting here more difficult. But to preserve my sanity, I'll take a few moments to highlight some recent class discussions that have really got me thinking.

I've been using N.T. Wright's Simply Christian as a text book for an introductory theology course and his way of conceptualizing the way God interacts within our world has provoked a lot of conversation. He basically argues that there are three possible ways of answering the question "Where is God?"

1) God is in everything, the universe is essentially divine.
2) God's world and our world are radically separate and distinct.
3) God's world and our world overlap and interlock.

Where this becomes somewhat confusing is in trying to understand God's ongoing activity in the world. In the first option God is somehow inherent in the processes of life so it's hard to talk about God's personal activity. What happens has the 'smell of divinity' but it's difficult to point to purpose behind it.

In the second option, the one Wright thinks is the default view for many Christians, God's activity can only be seen in the 'supernatural' or paranormal events of life. Our world, the world that is radically different from God's, is governed by natural processes that are explainable without recourse to God. If God were ever to do something within that world it would have to be something that could not be explained in any other way.

The more I've thought about this the more I recognize it within my own life. I implicitly expect that if God is going to show up it had better be obvious and it had better not have a naturalistic explanation. I would not agree with that statement on paper but it's often the first thought that pops into my head. But this is surely an incorrect view of God. If we agree that God's presence is found only in the utterly inexplicable, then we have failed in our obligation to point to the presence of God within the world that he has created. If God is only present in those experiences of life that circumvent the normal, then God is nothing more than an absentee landlord making periodic visits to collect the rent and fix the plumbing.

My daughter and I get to eat breakfast together some mornings and she often reminds me, as we eat, that God has brought the sun up again. Again! Sadly she's getting older and she's noticing this less and less often. In a way I see these mornings as a reminder that even though I've 'moved on' and now understand the sun's rising in more astronomically correct ways, she may be closer to the real truth behind it all.

How Do You Spell Defeat?

2007-03-19T15:31:00.000-06:00

As Shelley and I drove THIS home from Saskatoon Saturday afternoon we looked at one another and said, "There's no way around it. We're not cool anymore." I've tried to tell myself "It's a sporty minivan" but that's like saying 'my hair covers most of my head' or 'the Flames win most of their games at home'. It has the ring of a contradiction doesn't it.

Theodicy Lite

2007-03-18T09:18:00.000-06:00

If you've ever wondered about the theological significance of balding and the coping mechanisms it produces, look no further. I like to think of this as a small-scale version of theodicy for those of us who are afflicted.

The Doors of the Sea

2007-03-12T15:28:00.000-06:00

I've just finished David Bentley Hart's very difficult (i.e. lots of words I had to look up) but very compelling examination of the question of evil entitled The Doors of the Sea: Where Was God in the Tsunami? Hart essentially asks the two questions that he feels are most relevant for Christians who are trying to address this issue. He summarizes these two questions through two historical works: Voltaire's "Poem on the Disaster of Lisbon" and Dostoevsky's Brothers Karamazov.

1) Is evil and suffering morally intelligible alongside belief in God? This is the classic question of theodicy. Voltaire saw the destruction of the catastrophic earthquake that struck Lisbon on All Saints Day in 1755 and asked the natural question that we would all ask had we been there. How could a good God allow this? The fairness of it all is a question that raises itself inevitably in all times of suffering whether on a personal or societal scale. The tsunami is an obvious example from the recent past but (tragically) case studies are not hard to find.

This question should be intelligible to all but, for Hart, it is not a terribly threatening. It is based on a notion of God that is alien to the Christian gospel, a view that presents God as the one who sets the world in motion, controls (even decrees) everything that happens under heaven and whose actions can subsequently be judged based on their morality. This, says Hart, is not the Christian vision of God because it does not take seriously the idea that the world as it is is somehow estranged from God, that evil and suffering are not ordained by God but are in the most fundamental way, enemies of God's true intentions for the world.

2) Is ultimate redemption worth the cost if it somehow requires suffering?
Dostoevsky's Ivan Karamazov asks what is a far more dangerous question than the one above. Ivan surveys the wreckage of human suffering and asks the question: Would eventual salvation be worth the price if it required the tears of just one child? Is there any 'ultimate justice' that will justify suffering of this kind? Ivan rejects any kind of ultimate solution that would make the suffering of children either meaningful or necessary for God's overall purpose.

For Hart this is the far more disturbing question. Ivan freely admits that God will likely 'save' those who have suffered innocently. He admits that there may be a time when some kind of ultimate justice will prevail. He simply rejects any kind of truth or justice that would necessitate the kind of suffering that we see here and now (even the tears of one child).

Hart concludes that Ivan's is a profoundly Christian question and a profoundly prophetic question because it forces us to deal with the temptation to rationalize evil on the grounds that temporary suffering will be understandable in light of the final solution. It forces us to disown any theodicy that tries to persuade us that God utilizes evil as some part of his master plan. This is not good enough for Ivan and it's not good enough for Hart. He summarizes the two questions in what I find to be a very memorable quote.

"Voltaire sees only the terrible truth that the history of suffering and death is not morally intelligible. Dostoevsky sees - and this bespeaks both his moral genius and his irreducibly Christian view of reality - that it would be far more terrible if it were."

Signs of Aging

2007-03-08T14:35:00.000-06:00

Julie: Daddy your hair is hard to comb, I think it's because your hair is bald.

The Evolution of Belief

2007-03-04T21:04:00.000-06:00

The previous post generated quite a bit more discussion than I had expected, although the question raised remains, in my opinion, quite a significant one. If we grant that the world is all there is and that we are the way we are because of a long line of evolutionary adaptations, then how do we account for the idea of belief in God (or any other metaphysical 'truth')?

In one of the later comments Ryan points to a recent NY Times article that addresses this very question. The author asks: "Are we hard-wired to believe in God? And if we are, how and why did that happen?" Do we believe in God because of some kind of neurological accident (as Dawkins and Stephen Jay Gould appear to argue) or because it somehow enabled us to adapt more successfully to our environment? In the latter case the odd idea is posited that even if we can't see any current adaptive advantage to certain traits (either physical or mental) we can rest assured that there is a perfectly good historical one. Basically, if a trait or capacity looks like it's there for no obvious adaptive purpose we simply have to trust that at one point that purpose was more obvious. Sounds curiously like an article of faith to me.

So why do we exhibit this trait? Why do many (I would say nearly all) of us believe that our ideas correspond with a real Truth that is out there somewhere? Why do many of us believe in God or some kind of transcendent reality that provides us with an external reference point and sense of purpose? As a Christian I would see these realities as potential points of contact between ourselves and God. The fact that most of us have an intuitive belief in the supernatural could be seen as a problem that needs to be solved (as in the article above) or as a signpost toward our ultimate purpose. I choose to believe that it is the latter. I can't obviously prove it but I do think it is the most coherent option available.

One of the most interesting comments in the entire article comes near the end. After eleven pages of trying to distinguish between adaptionists (those who believe that we evolved the idea of God for some kind of adaptive reason) and byproduct theorists (those who hold that belief in God is a 'spandrel', a trait that serves no adaptive purpose but is an unintended byproduct of other evolutionary processes), the author arrives at the common ground that seems to exist between them.

"No matter how much science can explain, it seems, the real gap that God fills is an emptiness that our big-brained mental architecture interprets as a yearning for the supernatural. The drive to satisfy that yearning, according to both adaptationists and byproduct theorists, might be an inevitable and eternal part of... the tragedy of human cognition."

Perhaps the word 'tragedy' here betrays more assumptions than any other word in this article.

Dawkins Revisited

2007-02-27T10:35:00.000-06:00

Having spent a bit of time talking about Dawkin's 'God Delusion' (see here and here), I'll pass on a review of the book by Alvin Plantinga, a philosopher at the University of Notre Dame. Plantinga is a fairly widely respected Christian philosopher (although I find his Calvinism a bit baffling given his resistance to philosophical determinism) and his critique of Dawkins is quite pointed in a few places.

"You might say that some of his forays into philosophy are at best sophomoric, but that would be unfair to sophomores.."

For me one of his most interesting points is that naturalism (the natural world is all there is) and evolution are incompatible in the area of human knowledge. According to naturalism, what we call 'knowledge' is simply a matter of complex, essentially meaningless neurological interactions that are governed by evolutionary necessity. If this is accepted then there is no reason to think that we know anything about the world 'as it is', all we can really say is that our beliefs about the world are some kind of pragmatic evolutionary adaptation. We would have no reason for thinking they were true.

Unless you are willing to believe in some kind of unseen (purposeful) evolutionary 'hand' guiding the process, the best you could say is that we believe what is necessary to help us adapt to our immediate circumstances. There would literally be no reason to think that what we thought had any kind of metaphysical value. This would seem to discredit the entire point of a book claiming to talk about the truth of whether or not God exists (a fact that would seem to have very little evolutionary value).

Polkinghorne on the Nature of the Universe

2007-02-20T10:07:00.000-06:00

They say you shouldn't post on things you don't understand but, what the heck... I'll trust those who know better to correct me if what follows is wrong.

Lately I've been reading a lot of John Polkinghorne, a particle physicist turned theologian who is interested in the integration of these two fields of knowledge. He's written a couple of interesting books: Belief in God in an Age of Science, The Faith of a Physicist and The God of Hope and the End of the World are a few that are seen as influential. It took a while to understand what he was trying to do, especially with all of the scientific jargon he uses, but I think he makes some very important contributions to this whole conversation.

He makes the point that the scientific world has made some significant shifts in its understanding of the nature of reality. He points to quantum physics and chaos theory as evidence that the universe has the property of 'becoming' (as opposed to older views that were much more deterministic in nature). The future of the universe is much like the future of an individual, it is open within certain constraints (like growth and ultimate decay).

Chaos theory, for example, holds that cause and effect are not as rigidly connected as was once thought. There may be a range of potential outcomes that emerge from a certain cause and these outcomes are not always entirely predictable. The theological connection here is that God allows for 'becoming' within his world in a way that is somewhat analogous to our experience as human beings. Just as our lives are characterized by freedom within certain parameters, so also are things like the atmosphere and our solar system characterized by a certain level of 'openness'.

So the scientific consensus is changing (or has recently changed, I have no idea on the timing of these ideas). A couple of generations ago it would have been taken as self-evident that the universe operated something like an elaborate machine. The natural laws ensured a fixed outcome and the universe was basically conceived as moving along a predetermined path. The widespread rejection of this view of reality is, if nothing else, a good reminder that all knowledge is partial and contingent upon an openness to further discovery and exploration.

Is God Behind It All?

2007-02-13T10:12:00.000-06:00

We've had some interesting conversations in class over the past few days regarding the classic debate about God's knowledge/control of the current and future events and the meaningful choices that we have to make. The conversation ultimate turns on two elements of the Bible's presentation of how God runs the world: God is sovereign, human beings are free. Are those two elements contradictory, are they resolvable or do we have to somehow hold them in tension?

As we talked more about specifics we asked the question: Do the individual events or circumstances of our lives have individual meaning? This question becomes most acute during the negative experiences of life as we ask the eternal question, 'Why?'. The Christian answer has often been to reassert that God is in control, God has a plan and that the events of our lives are contributing to that plan in ways that we can't fully understand. I have become less satisfied with this answer as I have continued to ask the question.

As the conversation progressed I got some sense of why this question matters so much. We need to know that the bad stuff means something, that it serves some purpose. But the longer I ask this question the more I become convinced that God is not behind the bad stuff, that God is opposed to it just like we are, that God suffers with a suffering world. I realize that this raises questions of God's sovereignty but I prefer to think that God's sovereignty is expressed in his ultimate ability to bring good out of the bad, ultimately to bring resurrection out of death.

So what is the meaning of the bad stuff? I think that rather than looking for a individual purpose for every event that happens in my life (What does God mean by causing or allowing this particular circumstance?), I'm more inclined to see the Christian response as one that admits the difficulty of these circumstances, looks for God's redemptive work within them, while humbly pointing toward an ultimate resolution. This response certainly does not answer all the questions (what response could?) but I think it avoids some important mistakes.

Is Religion the Cause of War?

2007-02-05T11:00:00.000-06:00

Having recently been interested in the possibility of holding religious convictions without considering those who don't share them to be inferior I was intrigued by the following article that asks whether the very existence of religious beliefs leads inevitably to conflict. Meic Pearse, an author whose insights I have appreciated on other topics (see here and here), offers four arguments against the idea that all religious convictions are 'preludes to violence' (in either extreme or subtle forms):

1. Secularism has not stemmed the tide of conflict. The history of the 20th century should provide adequate examples of this fact. It cannot be argued that religion has the market cornered on ideologies that produce the capacity to cause violence.

2. Christianity, understood in terms of its own founding narratives, provides a 'non-coercive' worldview that will neither impose itself on others nor fight for itself. A religion that claims to follow one who instructed love of enemies and demonstrated the limits of that love by dying for the benefit of those who resisted him cannot legitimately use coercive measures to accomplish its goals. There are forms of religion that are more prone to violence than others and to paint them all with the same brush is overly simplistic and demonstrates an unwillingness to genuinely consider alternative viewpoints.

3. Many of the wars for which religion is blamed are more complicated issues concerning cultural values. Religion is obviously implicated in this but it is overly simplistic to say that the mere existence of religious beliefs is the root cause of violent conflict. Pearse goes on to argue that, "aggressive secularism is itself just one more metanarrative crying out for universalization - and therefore productive of violent conflict between its promoters and those who resist it."

4. There is no possibility of abandoning the idea of truth no matter how much we think that religious conceptions of truth lead to violence. Even the effort to universalize the view that the cause of conflict is people who think they're divinely right has become just one more worldview option that has its fundamentalist devotees just like other religions.

Pearse makes the point that the label 'religion' needs to be reexamined. Do all religious perspectives really lead to the same end goal of conflict (whether or not that leads to actual warfare)? Or can we move past this to talk about our actual visions of God, the world and each other?

via: Theos

Follow-Up

2007-01-29T11:51:00.000-06:00

A follow-up from a previous post: A.C. Grayling is offering another history lesson clarifying the role of Christianity in stunting the intellectual growth of Europe. He issues a challenge to "name one - even one small - contribution to science made by Christianity in its two thousand years". Thankfully this challenge has provoked a response that demonstrates that it is better to do your homework before speaking.

In this latest go-round Grayling finally (and predictably) brings out the example of Galileo to go along with the usual trump card of the Spanish Inquisition. Apparently the intellectual history of Christian Europe can be summarized by the following phrase:

"Norms of fulfilment and flourishing in human life rest on such richer possibilities now than when the sun went round the earth and you could be burned to death for not believing that it did."

Yes, there is unanimity among historians that for most of church history the normal practice has been to burn dissenters and to oppose progress in all it's forms. With history and logic like this it's a wonder that anyone believes in God anymore. As to the potential that Christianity at it's best offers its own 'richer possibilities' for human flourishing and fulfillment... well... why interact with all the facts when it's so much more fun to be selective.

Superiority Complex?

2007-01-25T14:53:00.000-06:00

I just came across an article/post by Brian McLaren where he attempts to answer the provocative question "What's the good of having a religion if you can't feel superior to anybody?"

McLaren's answer is in the following rhetorical question: "What is religion for? Is it for creating an in-group that feels superior? Or is it for turning us into neighbors who want to appreciate, love, and serve one another?" He goes on to make some important observations about how the nature of the Christian faith is such that it requires us to see the neighbour not as a threat or a project but as a, "bearer of the image of God, someone I have the opportunity to know and appreciate and perhaps even serve in some way."

I really resonate with McLaren on this point but I also wonder if he's not missing something important that might be in the back of the minds of some of his readers. Undoubtedly there are members of religious groups that feel superior to others but does merely belonging to a group that thinks its 'right' require that kind of view? It seems to me that one of the really curious shifts in contemporary thinking has been that it has become 'common-sense' to believe that holding a different position than someone else (and actually caring about it) is the same as believing that you are superior to them. This seems to force us into the position of either saying everyone's right (how else can we all be equal?) or that our beliefs don't really matter after all. I sincerely hope that there are other alternatives available.

I agree fully that an 'us against them' approach to life (and faith) is a mistake. But I wonder whether we as a society could get any kind of consensus on what approach we would like to see replace it.

See here for an interesting related discussion (via Kristin).

Christian Faith and Progress

2007-01-23T10:07:00.000-06:00

There is a common caricature of Christian faith that sees it as inherently opposed to the idea of progress and that anything worthwhile and good in the world has been achieved in the teeth of opposition from the church. A good example of this is latest musing of British skeptic and philosopher A.C. Grayling. Grayling is mortally offended at the suggestion (being made by some German evangelicals) that the constitution of the EU should have any reference to Europe's Christian heritage and proceeds to interpret the history of Europe as a valiant struggle to escape the superstitious clutches of the church.

"By the accident of its being the myth chosen by Constantine for his purposes, [Christianity] plunged Europe into the dark ages for the next thousand years - scarcely any literature or philosophy, and the forgetting of the arts and crafts of classical civilisation... before a struggle to escape the church's narrow ignorance and oppression saw the rebirth of classical learning, and its ethos of inquiry and autonomy, in the Renaissance."

For Grayling, the time between the deminse of classical Greece and the Enlightenment was essentially a 1600 year hiatus into ignorance and superstition so any reference to the formative role of the Christian religion in European history would be a mistake (I'll add at this point that I have no particular concern about what does or does not make its way into the EU constitution).

Grayling goes on to make the following radical claim: "From that point to this day every millimetre of progress in liberty and learning has been bitterly opposed by the organised institutions of Christianity"

Predicatable references to the Spanish Inquisition and other gross injustices perpetrated by the church follow (although I was shocked that he didn't express the usual lament over the persecution of Galileo). While no thoughtful Christian would argue that the church is not guilty of these and other injustices (both past and present), Grayling's views represent an extremely selective reading of history. Is his statement actually true? Has every millimetre of progress in liberty and learning really been opposed by the Christian church ?

Is he not familiar with the preservation of classical Greek learning by medieval Irish monks? Was the Reformation not a genuine step forward in its emphasis on the responsibility of the individual before God and its opening up of not only the Bible but other literary sources to a far wider audience? Was not scientific exploration based (at least initially) on a profound belief in the ordered rationality of the universe as an expression of the mind of God? Was the abolition of slavery (or for that matter the civil rights movement) completely devoid of Christian motivation? Was the outrage over and opposition to apartheid the exclusive domain of those outside the Christian church?

For all of these examples of progress there are sad examples of Christian opposition as well but to pretend, as Grayling does, that in order to become a Christian you must also be committed to opposing progress in all its forms is laughable. There are always elements within society that are afraid of and resistant to change but to pretend that this resistance is somehow part of the DNA of the Christian faith is, in my opinion, irresponsible and misleading. It is an important exercise to talk about what we actually mean by the term 'progress' and this caricaturization of the role of Christianity within the debate is not helping.

For an interesting look at the Christian contribution to some of the dominant features of the modern world see Jonathan Hill's What Has Christianity Ever Done For Us?

Overheard

2007-01-21T08:12:00.000-06:00

Craig MacTavish (coach of the Edmonton Oilers) trying to explain his team's 4-0 loss to the mighty Calgary Flames: "We made too many mistakes and they capitalized. They were more capitalistic."

Confused vocabulary or subtle social critique of Alberta economics? You be the judge.

New and Noteworthy

2007-01-19T11:15:00.000-06:00

Another new blog to pass along, my brother has finally relented to public pressure and begun posting. I'm quite confident that this blog will be worth reading but then again we do share the same DNA.

My Exciting New Template

2007-01-18T14:23:00.000-06:00

Sorry for this artless new presentation. I experimented with Blogger's updated format and pressed 'save' when I shouldn't have (why oh why?). I repent of my ignorance and ask all loyal readers to forgive my technological naivete.

Miller Time

2007-01-16T14:34:00.000-06:00

Here's another highlight for the vault. I don't think I've seen a better save than this one.

Pardon the Delay

2007-01-14T16:19:00.000-06:00

My apologies for the silence in recent weeks. There really is no explanation other than the fact that I haven't had a lot to say. The Christmas rush was followed by a week in Calgary and there hasn't been a whole lot of time to think or post about anything all that interesting. Classes start again tomorrow morning so that may provide some food for thought. Until then I'll pass along a link to a new blog by prominent Canadian theologian and Regent College professor John Stackhouse. If his blog is as interesting as his published work (see previous link for more details), this will be worth checking in on now and then (for an appetizer, try 'The Blasphemy Challenge'). I hope to resume posting more regularly in the days ahead.

Steve Bell

2006-12-19T09:56:00.000-06:00

In the midst of the end of semester madness, Shelley and I had the opportunity to go hear Steve Bell perform at West Portal Church last Friday night. The music was characteristically excellent but the evening was also a beautiful reminder of the some of the profound truths of the Christmas season. Steve has the unique ability to communicate things in a simple yet deeply significant way, sort of like he's reminding you of something important that you've always known but somehow forgotten.

He talked about the way Christmas has become something ugly, a binge of consumption, gluttony and sentimentality, and made the observation that it has become this way in part because we don't usually celebrate Christmas with Good Friday and Easter in mind. If we celebrate Jesus' birth without remembering that his message was rejected as scandalous and that he ended up getting himself executed then all we are left with is sentimentality. After all, what could be more delightful (and harmless) than a little baby.

One song Bell did, 'Every Stone Shall Cry,' goes through the various stages of Christ's life, from his birth to Palm Sunday, to Good Friday and makes the point that the awe and wonder of Bethlehem became the adoration and praise of Jerusalem, became the rejection and hatred of Golgotha. At each stage the stones cry but at each stage the circumstances are very different.

But now as at the ending
The low is lifted high
The stars will bend their voices
And every stone shall cry
And every stone shall cry
In praises of the child
By whose descent among us
The worlds are reconciled

I wonder what Christmas would look like if Jesus' followers remembered the whole story instead of only the beginning.

Theos

2006-12-08T10:52:00.000-06:00

Some British Christians have started an interesting experiment called Theos. It's being described as a 'public theology think tank' and is seeking to address questions involving the role of religion in public life through published reports, media analysis and the sponsoring of public events, study conferences and debates. In their words:

"Society is embarking on a process of rapid de-secularisation. Interest in spirituality is increasing across Western culture. Faith is firmly on the agenda of both government and the media. In the arts, humanities and social sciences there are important and exciting intellectual developments currently taking place around questions of values and identity. Theos speaks into this new context. Our perspective is that faith is not just important for human flourishing and the renewal of society, but that society can only truly flourish if faith is given the space to do so."

The have an initial report called 'Doing God: A Future For Faith in the Public Square' written by a certain Nick Spencer, that lays out some of the theory behind this organization (warning: it's really long). I've read the report and some of the initial responses to this organization and it seems like it might be an interesting site to keep an eye on.

FYI

2006-12-05T12:01:00.000-06:00

Some of Ryan's comments from a recent conversation on a debate between Richard Dawkins and Francis Collins has made it to the 'Letters' section of Time Magazine. Aside from a few crude editorial interventions I think this follows the script pretty closely. Ryan may have sent these in but I suspect that the editors of Time are probably regular readers of this blog.

A Philosophy (Theology) of Dialogue

2006-12-01T11:53:00.000-06:00

A recent comment has got me thinking about what kind of rules or guidelines should govern a genuine dialogue. This blog has occasionally been the site of some fairly 'fervent disagreement' and this makes me wonder about what it means to talk about differing ideas in a responsible or ethical way.

One of my own convictions is that dialogue, if it is genuine and not merely an intellectual game or exercise, has to involve the openness to talk about the ultimate commitments or assumptions of those who are participating. If those are not on the table it is very easy talk about peripheral issues and avoid the ones that matter. One author has referred to the refusal to talk about these commitments as 'dialogue insured against risk'. Often dialogue can help uncover assumptions and make them explicit, but to refuse to open these up for discussion seems irresponsible.

I think this is a particular problem in our time since postmodernism has taught us that cynicism and doubt are among the highest intellectual virtues and our responsibility is to scrutinize and deconstruct truth claims. This can be a necessary task but no less necessary is the offering of some kind of alternative, some kind of positive alternative to that which is being rejected.

There are obviously many more things that could be said on this but I'm interested in the opinions of others. Is it possible to come up with a 'philosophy of dialogue'? If so, what would that look like?

Follow-Up

2006-11-28T12:16:00.000-06:00

Here's some follow-up reading on the resurgence of atheist literary output in recent months. The commentator is NY Times editorialist Richard Shweder and the title is 'Atheists Agonistes' ('agonistes' is a term that refers to 'the struggler' or 'the combatant'), a thoughtful musing on the some potential root causes of the revival. Here are two quotes I found interesting:

"The popularity of the current counterattack on religion cloaks a renewed and intense anxiety within secular society that it is not the story of religion but rather the story of the Enlightenment that may be more illusory than real."

"A shared conception of the soul, the sacred and transcendental values may be a prerequisite for any viable society."

Heartwarming

2006-11-21T19:38:00.000-06:00

Some days the rewards of parenting make it worth all the effort.

Julie: "Daddy, I want to play with a friend tonight."
Daddy: "What about me? Am I your friend?"
Julie (with a quizzical look): "Yes"

(pause)

Julie: "But Daddy I want to play with a friend."
Daddy: I'm your friend Julie. Do you want to play with me?"
Julie: "Daddy I want to play with a friend that's... um... like... (pause)... not you."

Update

2006-11-21T15:13:00.000-06:00

For those of you who expressed an interest in the (Red)emption effort, Mike has posted a four week update. Progress has been consistent but they are still well short of their goal of 1000 donors. So consider a $10 statement, a $10 expression of support for those suffering with AIDS. I've just finished Stephen Lewis' Race Against Time and been reminded again of the mind-numbing statistics behind this catastrophe (the Stephen Lewis Foundation is the destination of your $10 donation). Reading this book you definitely get the sense that Lewis is desperate to do anything to stir the conscience of his readers. It was obvious on a number of occasions that he was looking for words that were strong enough to communicate his anger and frustration with the apathy and inertia of the rest of the world (whether that is at the level of policy or individual compassion). I look at a contribution as a statement of concern and a refusal to give in the despair that a situation like this can lead to.

"The Church of the Non-Believers"

2006-11-18T17:17:00.000-06:00

A friend, having seen the subject of my last post, gave me a copy of the latest edition of Wired, a magazine devoted to developments in science, technology and culture. The cover boldly proclaims the advent of "The New Atheism" a feature article entitled "The Church of the Nonbelievers."

Again Richard Dawkins, atheistic evangelist extraordinaire, features prominently. His interest, at least according to this article, is targeting and converting wavering non-believers and extending the political influence of atheism. He seems to present his views with a bit less scientific caution in this article. How's this for rational 'scientific observation': "Highly intelligent people are mostly atheists. Not a single member of either house of Congress admits to being an atheist. It just doesn't add up. Either they're stupid, or they're lying."

It becomes obvious throughout the article that Dawkins is interested in nothing less than the eradication of religion. Atheistic evangelism is a moral imperative. It's not just religious fundamentalism that must be overcome, it is religion period. Religion is not, for Dawkins, something that can be tolerated. In his defense, Dawkins does present a solid case against the argument that because God's existence cannot be disproved there is logical grounds for belief. But on the whole his reasoning seems inconsistent; he often lapses into statements of faith that are not justified but merely assumed.

He even goes so far as to speculate about whether or not parents should be permitted to pass on their religious faith to their children. "It's one thing to say people should be free to believe whatever they like, but should they be free to impose their beliefs on their children? Is there something to be said for society stepping in?" By some contortion of logic, Dawkins is able to convince himself that it's 'morally wrong' to pass our bad ideas (i.e. faith) on to our children. Where this idea of morality comes from, we are not told.

Sam Harris, author of The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason is also featured in this article. His perspective is more pragmatic. We need to abandon religion because if we don't we will end up annihilating ourselves over our religious differences. Religion is responsible for most of the conflict in the world; get rid of religion, get rid of conflict. It is true; religion has been responsible for conflict, yet I think our view of history can become quite narrow on this point. We tend to emphasize only the conflict produced by religion and ignore the many positive contributions that have been made by sincere believers attempting to express their faith in God through service to others.

Again I come to the conclusion that we are dealing with rival systems of belief. Harris makes this point himself when asked what a world without God would look like. "There would be a religion of reason. We would have realized a rational means to maximize human happiness... We would be able to invoke the power of poetry and ritual and silent contemplation and all the variables of happiness so that we could exploit them." Contemplation as a 'variable of happiness'? I confess I have no idea what that means.

Finally Daniel Dennett, author of Breaking the Spell: Religion as a Natural Phenomenon, presents a case that rests heavily on certain 'default settings' that he believes we have as human beings. This is why we can trust our judgment on things like morality. We don't ask the question of where we got our ideas of 'good' and 'evil', essentially we just trust that they are reliable. Wolf challenges him on this point, arguing that these 'defaults' are objects of faith just like the Bible or some other religious source of knowledge.

At the end of the article, Wolf admits that he is not convinced. There is, apparently, a bit too much 'religion' in the attack against religion.

"The irony of the New Atheism - this prophetic attack on prophecy, this extremism in opposition to extremism - is too much for me... no matter how confident we are in our beliefs, there's always a chance we could turn out to be wrong."

God vs. Science

2006-11-15T11:26:00.000-06:00

Well Time Magazine has dove headfirst into a topic that always generates a lot of heat and (occasionally) a bit of light. "God vs. Science," the latest cover story, takes the form of a debate between the atheist philosopher Richard Dawkins, author of the recent bestseller The God Delusion, and Francis Collins, director of the National Human Genome Research Institute and author of The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief.

The debate is based on the assumption that most of us as readers want to occupy something the author calls a 'middle-ground': we want the benefits of science and technological development but we want to hang on to the possibility of miracles and supernatural intervention. We want to celebrate the advances of science while retaining a sense of cosmic significance. We want to have our cake and eat it too.

On the whole I thought the debate was a fairly honest presentation of the key differences between the two sides. Collins talks about the intricacy of the natural world and the astronomical unlikelihood of our universe being able to sustain life as arguments for the existence of a Designer. Dawkins posits the multiverse theory, that argues that ours is but one of an infinite number of universes, most of which do not sustain life.

There's also some discussion of the idea of whether or not we have to look 'within the machine' for an answer to the question of God's existence. Dawkins finds Collins' view of the possibility of supernatural intervention 'from the outside' to be an abdication of scientific responsibility. Collins sees an argument that rules out the possibility of the supernatural before the fact to be a decision that is not necessarily based on evidence but on prior commitments.

They touch briefly on the moral question: Do the categories of 'good' and 'evil' make sense if morality is seen as an evolutionary adaptation? Here Dawkins seemed a bit confusing to me. Consider the following statements:

"I don't believe that there is hanging out there, anywhere, something called good and something called evil. I think that there are good things that happen and bad things that happen."

"Humans have more moral responsibility perhaps, because they are capable of reasoning."

I'm not sure I understand how the categories of good and evil are possible without some kind of external reference point. How are good and evil distinguishable without some kind of standard? How is moral behaviour on the one hand evidence of our evolutionary adaptation to our environment and on the other hand a 'responsibility' that is ours on the virtue of our capacity for reason? This becomes especially confusing as Dawkins tries to address the question of stem-cell research. Here he employs a moral category as the criterion for decisions in this area, "Moral questions such as stem-cell research turn upon whether suffering is caused."

So where do these thinkers eventually come out? The following are quotes from their concluding statements:

Collins...
"I find absolutely nothing in conflict between agreeing with Richard in practically all of his conclusions about the natural world, and also saying that I am still able to accept and embrace the possibility that there are answers that science isn't able to provide about the natural world--the questions about why instead of the questions about how. I'm interested in the whys. I find many of those answers in the spiritual realm. That in no way compromises my ability to think rigorously as a scientist."

Dawkins...
"My mind is open to the most wonderful range of future possibilities, which I cannot even dream about, nor can you, nor can anybody else. What I am skeptical about is the idea that whatever wonderful revelation does come in the science of the future, it will turn out to be one of the particular historical religions that people happen to have dreamed up."

This was an interesting read but like most debates on this topic it seems that there is an inevitable stalemate that is reached as both positions are pushed back to their starting points. Dawkins views any attempt to explain the evidence by positing the existence of God to be contrary to the scientific method. Collins remains open to the possibility of supernatural intervention in the world. Once these cards are on the table it can feel like there's not an obvious way forward in the conversation.

Functional Faith (4) - Meaning

2006-11-08T13:04:00.000-06:00

The last of Volf's four elements of a 'functional faith' is meaning and this completes his portrait of what a healthy faith looks like. This is, in my opinion, the most basic and fundamental of faith's functions. When faith is operating according to its design it is helping us to understand and interpret the meaning behind the experiences of our lives.

Here the basic observation is that all of us have an innate desire to discover meaning behind the things that we do (or seek to do) and the experiences that we face. It seems to be a uniquely human capacity and longing to go beyond the surface, beyond the appearance of things and into a vague, shadowy realm where we wonder about the meaning (if any) behind it all. But we rarely stop to wonder why this longing, this relentless drive is a part of who we are as human beings. None of us are content with 'the facts', we all need to interpret them and to impose some kind of meaning on them.

So this is the function that faith in God (or whatever else we put our trust in) seeks to provide. From the Christian perspective, faith in God provides a point of orientation around which we organize our hopes and aspirations, our disappointments and failures, our efforts and our struggles. The meaning behind all of these realities of life is tied up in the story of a good world, created by a good God that is struggling to retain its true image, an image that has been lost and distorted due to human sin. This struggle has been overcome by the God of the universe taking on the sin and pain of the world and overcoming it by love. The cross is overcome by the resurrection, death is swallowed up in victory.

This provides the interpretive clue that explains the frustration that we all experience living in a world where reality does not often meet expectation. It also helps us to understand and celebrate those moments when we get glimpses of the healing that will one day characterize all that God has made.

This also gives meaning to the things that we do here and now. God's purpose is simply this restoration of all things. We can have confidence that nothing that we do that contributes to that goal (whether in our own personal lives or in the lives of the world in which we participate) will be lost. The fear that we have is that everything we work for is for nothing, that everything will be buried under the 'rubble of history' and that we ourselves will be forgotten and that the whole thing will have no meaning. It is our faith in a God of resurrection makes all the difference in the world.

"Every act of faithful service, every honest labour to make the world a better place, which seemed to have been forever lost and forgotten in the rubble of history, will be seen on that day to have contributed to the perfect fellowship of God's kingdom... all who have committed their work in faithfulness to God will be by him raised up to share in the new age, and will find that their labour was not lost, but that it has found its place in the completed kingdom."

Lesslie Newbigin, Signs Amid the Rubble, 47.

The Challenge Facing the Church

2006-11-06T13:40:00.000-06:00

"The greatest challenge facing the local church in the next 50 years is the same one that we've never quite met in our last 50 (or 2000) years: to enable our congregation to be half as interesting as Jesus."

Will Willimon
United Methodist Bishop of North Alabama
via Christianity Today

MEDA Nominated For Award

2006-11-03T16:29:00.000-06:00

I've been impressed with the work of MEDA (Mennonite Economic Development Associates) for a while so I was happy to hear that they've been shortlisted for the Alcan Prize for Sustainability for 2006 (see the shortlist here). The description on the Alcan prize website reads:

"The Alcan Prize for Sustainability is a US $1 million prize to be awarded each year for not-for-profit, non-governmental, and civil society organizations that are working diligently to make our world a better place."

In a week where the topic of how we use our money for the benefit of others has been prominent it is good to see an organization that is dedicated to sustainable development receiving a measure of recognition (without the help of Oprah or Bono). If you are looking for an organization to support on an ongoing basis, look no further.

Faith and Political Involvement

2006-11-03T11:57:00.000-06:00

I have previously referred to Greg Boyd's efforts at challenging some prevailing assumptions about what evangelicalism looks like with respect to political issues so I was interested in a recent debate (or discussion) he participated in with Jim Wallis, a prominent Christian social activist. Both have serious questions about the way in which the Christian church seems to have been co-opted by the political right-wing but they take very different views on what kind of political participation is appropriate for Christians. The article focuses on the apparent appetite there is for this kind of debate among current evangelicals (and the notable absence of any representative of the 'religious right' at the table).

Functional Faith (3) - Guidance

2006-11-02T08:41:00.000-06:00

Returning to Volf's conception of what a 'functional faith' looks like it is important to note that, in his opinion, much of contemporary North American Christianity never gets past the first two features: blessing and deliverance. We either view faith as some kind of performance-enhancing drug or we use it as a crutch so console us in our failures. In both of these cases faith is still idling, it is still malfunctioning.

The third function of a healthy faith is that of guidance. Here the idea is that most of us look to God for help in making decision and deciding how we will order our lives. We want to know what to do and we want to know what things we can leave undone. We want to know how to make important decisions in ways that are faithful to who we believe we are called to be. This is an area of faith that has a lot of personal interest for me because I have struggled with the idea of how precisely God does lead and guide in human decision making. It is also a very prominent concern for many of the students I work with.

Here Volf made the strong statement that our faith should have the final say in all ethical matters, even (especially) in the workplace. The idea of faith providing guidance for personal morality and nothing else is not an option. We believe and we make decisions as whole persons and it makes little sense to split our lives into private and public realms and say that our faith only addresses "what we do with our solitude".

The classic example is the public figure, caught in some kind of moral failure, who argues that their private life has nothing to do with their public leadership. Most of us know that there is something wrong with this kind of argument, even if we struggle to articulate it in a convincing way. It is simply laughable that character traits, values, and habits that are expressed in 'private' have no bearing on a person's public role. The very fact that this is conceivable to us is an indication of how deeply ingrained the public/private dichotomy actually is.

Volf went on to say that faith does not just guide in the sense of giving us boundaries and limits in the area of morality. We are not merely called avoid what is morally impermissible, we are called to strive for moral excellence. This calling does not restrict moral excellence to the realm of Christian ethics but it does give us the proper motivation to guide our actions.

There are many grey areas here but Volf's overall point was that a faith that stops at the 'what's in it for me?' question without allowing God to guide our actual decisions is an idle faith. This certainly does not answer all the questions. How do we actually understand God to be guiding our actions? Is it primarily through the Bible? Is it primarily through subjective interpretation of 'the voice of God?' Does faith 'function' in providing an overarching set of values that will inform our decision making or is there more direct guidance available for individual decisions? These are the questions that Volf's points here raised for me. I agree with his interpretation of this function of faith but remain a little confused on how it gets expressed practically.

(Red)emption

2006-11-01T07:47:00.000-06:00

I hadn't heard a whole lot about the Product (Red) Campaign, (the Gap's contribution to wiping out AIDS in Africa) but I had heard enough to admire the intention. The problems in Africa really seem to be beyond description and the temptation view the whole situation with an attitude of despair is sometimes strong. So let me say that I admire any organization that seeks to make a difference in eradicating this tremendous injustice.

I've been made aware (through my brother) of an effort called (Red)emption that is being launched by Mike Todd, a Vancouver blogger and Regent College student. His goal is to honour the intention of Product (Red) while bypassing the consumerism that it seems to require. Essentially he's asking why the only way we (as a culture) will give money to this project is if there's something in it for us (a red T-Shirt or a red ipod for example). Could we give exclusively out of a motivation for love or do we have to be bribed in the process?

He's only asking for $10 and his goal is to get 1000 people to join in to prove that it's possible for 'kingdom currency' to make a difference. The money will go to the Stephen Lewis Foundation, an organization dedicated supporting grassroots efforts that are trying to ease the suffering in Africa. Please help prove Mike right.

Update: In anticipation of some of the questions that people may have of a campaign like this I'll simply refer you to Mike's own responses to various questions and objections.

Functional Faith (2) - Deliverance

2006-10-27T07:48:00.000-06:00

The second positive 'function' that faith can have (when it's operating properly) is that of deliverance. Here Volf pointed out the basic reality that most of us struggle to find ways to deal with failure and disappointment in our lives. Faith in God functions in that it gives us ways of both understanding and overcoming these negative aspects of life. So if blessing talks about faith's contribution to human success, deliverance deals with human failure.

Ultimately I'm not sure how different this is from the idea of faith as a blessing because most of us would not be content with God consoling us in our failures but would want his help in overcoming them. Volf argued that we can take comfort from the fact that our failures do not define who we are, that we have a value that transcends our accomplishments and failures. We are loved by God, not because of what we do, but because of who we are. This perspective can be very healing in times of disappointment.

So the extreme form here would be the idea of faith as some kind of coping mechanism, a crutch that we can lean on as we limp through the struggles of life. But I would argue that this is misunderstanding of the Christian faith. At the heart of the gospel is the news that God himself enters into our pain and failure, experiences their ultimate consequences and triumphs over them through the resurrection.

This does not translate into some kind of guarantee that everything will turn out right in the here and now but it does offer us the promise and the hope that failure, pain (and ultimately death) are not the final word on the human predicament. Faith is malfuctioning when it is understood as some kind of 'get out of jail free card' the exempts us from the normal trials of life (it certainly did not have the function in Jesus' life).

So what does deliverance look like? Will God deliver us? How? From what? It is difficult to look at life honestly and say that our normal expectation should be that God will deliver us from our trials. I think faith in Christ, when it's functioning properly, gives us the hope and the expectation that these experiences do not define us and they do not have the last word. The last word is always resurrection.

Functional Faith (1) - Blessing

2006-10-24T11:47:00.000-06:00

So if faith is malfunctioning when it leans toward either idleness or coerciveness, what is the proper role of faith in contemporary life? Volf wrapped up his lectures by summarizing four key areas where faith can contribute to what he called a 'counter-culture for the common good'. (I always find it interesting how we have substituted the word 'faith' for the word 'God' - surely it is not my faith that is making any kind of contribution but the God in whom I have put my faith... that's probably another post).

Anyways, I've decided to go through Volf's four elements of a 'functional faith' (in his terminology, a faith that makes a difference for people living in a pluralistic world) and to make some observations and ask some questions about what this looks like in day to day life.

The first aspect of a functional faith is the complicated idea of blessing. This seeks to answer the question of how I can 'succeed' in life and argues that faith makes a difference because it helps us toward that end. Volf argues that as human beings we have a built in desire to accomplish things, whether individually or socially. Simply put, faith serves to make those desires a reality.

The question of the definition of success would differ greatly depending on who you were to ask but at a basic level, faith serves to make us better people and we somehow trust that God will be a part of that. There is a link throughout the Bible (although it's fainter than some would suggest) between the success of individuals and communities and the favour of God.

Volf's point here is that it is fundamentally a part of God's nature to be a giver and this means that we as his creatures are always in the position of receiving. In a memorable phrase Volf summarized it like this: "God gives, so we exist". As Paul put it in his speech to the Epicureans, 'In him we live and move and have our being' (Acts 17:28).

So Volf isn't talking about God as some kind of cosmic Santa Claus, a celestial gift-dispenser for those who have chosen to play on his team. His talking about the fact that our very existence is a gift of God since the breath of life itself is not something that we've created. In a derivative sense, then, God empowers all our action because all that we do is done in the shadow of this ultimate gift of life.

He did go beyond this idea to say that there is a linkage in the Bible between the favour of God and human success. Particularly in the OT you see this emphasis on human prosperity (Volf would use the word 'flourishing') and the people's allegiance to the covenant. But it seems that this emphasis fades a bit once we get to the NT. Now Christians and churches are called to imitate the suffering of Christ and the expectation seems to be that they will be an isolated and marginalized sect within the Roman Empire.

I'll confess that this idea of 'blessing' is part of the Christian faith that I have difficulty with. Do I have reason to believe that my life will be 'better' because of my faith in God? I have no trouble agreeing with the first part of Volf's argument, that all of life is a gift and that my very existence could be interpreted as evidence of God's favour. But it's more difficult for me to believe that my faith gives me some kind of 'advantage' over others in terms of material success in the here and now. The most obvious distortion of this kind of teaching is the health and wealth gospel but I think there are many milder variations of that radical perspective.

So if faith is supposed to function as a blessing in my life what can (should) I expect? Should I think of it primarily as God's favour on what I'm already doing or should I expect periodic 'interventions' on from God on my behalf? I'd be interested to hear how this has worked itself out in the lives of others.

When Not Seeing is Believing

2006-10-23T11:39:00.000-06:00

Interesting article in the October 9 edition of Time Magazine on how 'spiritual doubt' could be the key to defusing tensions between the rival fundamentalisms of East and West. Andrew Sullivan's 'When Not Seeing is Believing' is an argument for a greater humility in terms of what can be known about God and a reminder that there is a certain amount of doubt that is healthy and normal when it comes to finite people comprehending an infinite God.

"If God really is God, then God must, by definition, surpass our human understanding. Not entirely. We have Scripture, we have reason, we have religious authority; we have our own spiritual experiences of the divine. But there is still something that we will never grasp, something we can never know - because God is beyond our human categories. And if God is beyond our categories, then God cannot be captured for certain... There will always be seomthing that eludes us. It there weren't it would be not be God."

I'm not sure Sullivan has uncovered the key to the diplomatic questions surrounding Iran and North Korea but he has given an interesting perspective on the nature of religious knowledge and the attitudes of those who claim it.

Malfunctions of Faith - Coerciveness

2006-10-18T08:14:00.000-06:00

The other prominent sign that faith is malfunctioning, according to Volf, is an effort to combine it with force, whether that force is used to make others 'convert' or whether it involves a concerted effort to make society look more Christian. This, he argues, is a misunderstanding of what faith actually is.

So many would view the call to 'active faith' with suspicion and alarm. 'Active faith,' so the argument goes, is the cause of all the problems in the world. Active faith causes people to kill and convert each other and generally leads to all kinds of division within society. Particularly since 9/11 the idea of religion being any kind of public influence has been viewed with deep reservation (although the roots of this sentiment would stretch much further back).

There are endless examples cited of faith's destructive influence, from the crusades to the Inquisition to the Salem witch hunts, and all of these are raised to make the basic point that idleness, when it comes to faith, might actually be a very good thing. There is obviously no point in denying these ugly elements of the history of the church. Volf made the point that the history on this point is often quite revisionist. The failings of the church are remembered with clarity while the benefits that the church has had in the world are ignored or forgotten. But there is no point in pretending that Christians have not sinned greatly in coercing others on the basis of our faith.

Volf argues that these violent examples from our past demonstrate the need, not for less faith but for more. Violence and coerciveness, he says, are examples of a 'thinned-out faith' that mixes a minimal understanding of the Christian gospel with a lot of zeal. The solution to this problem is not 'no faith' but a 'thicker faith', one that is more committed to living out the radical implications of following a crucified saviour in a world that always prefers power to weakness and coercion to suffering love.

Volf briefly raised the question of whether or not any exclusivist faith was by its very nature coercive since the goal was to get other people to agree or to convert but he didn't, in my opinion, answer that question in enough detail. He made a point about how a world of pluralism or polytheism (synonyms in my view) offered no greater unity than monotheism and encouraged us to live lives ordered around nothing more than our own desires." I wish he would have explained this further but I heard enough to be intrigued.

Malfunctions of Faith - Idleness

2006-10-16T13:32:00.000-06:00

I'm back from a really enjoyable couple of days in Vancouver where I had the opportunity to listen to Miroslav Volf present the 2006 Laing Lectures. His lectures were entitled "A Voice of One's Own: Public Faith in a Pluralistic World" and it was very interesting to hear his take on how the Christian faith can function in our contemporary world'.

So how does faith function in a pluralistic world? Volf began by identifying two key malfunctions of faith, each prominent in varying degrees across Western Culture. He labeled the first malfunction 'idleness' and described it as an extremely privatised view of faith that makes little difference beyond questions of individual morality and family life.

The temptation, he argued, was to see faith as either a 'performance-enhancing drug' or a 'divine band-aid'. The image of the performance-enhancing drug sees God as a kind of blessing dispenser that promises to make us more successful people. Faith is something that we use in order to try to achieve success and we see God primarily in terms of the benefits that he can provide us.

The image of the divine band-aid refers to a faith seen primarily as a consolation for us in our disappointment and failure. This is sort of like Marx's view of religion as the 'opiate of the masses'; faith essentially serves as a crutch to help people deal with the failure and pain in their lives. God is seen mainly as someone who can help us deal with whatever afflictions we may be suffering from.

Volf argued that these are both examples of faith that is malfunctioning because they misunderstand what faith is actually for. Both the idea that God wants to make us successful and that God can heal our pain and failure have elements of truth to them but both, in and of themselves, are only part of a much bigger and more complicated picture of what faith is actually for. In Volf's words, "Christianity is either a way of life or it is a parody of itself."

Hearing these two malfunctions described was helpful for me because I think both are prevalent both within the Christian world (and probably within my own life if I'm honest). Both of these images point to the danger of an privatised and (in my opinion) irrelevant faith. Details on the second malfunction of faith to come.

Oh Yes

2006-10-14T10:40:00.000-06:00

Some days it's awesome to be a Flame fan...

Oh Dear

2006-10-12T18:47:00.000-06:00

Some days it hurts to be an England fan...

A Voice of One's Own

2006-10-10T09:53:00.000-06:00

Christmas comes in October this year. I'm off to Vancouver tomorrow for the 2006 Laing Lectures at Regent College. This year's lectures will be given by Miroslav Volf of Yale Divinity School and are entitled "A Voice of One's Own: Public Faith in a Pluralistic World". I was first introduced to Volf in a seminary course on racial reconciliation where his book Exclusion and Embrace was required reading. His main argument here is that truth and embrace need one another and are not necessarily the antagonists that they are often presented as.

"The will to embrace cannot be sustained and will not result in actual embrace if the truth does not reign. If truth cannot do without the will to embrace, neither can embrace do without the will to truth." (Exlusion and Embrace, 258.)

Volf also offers a powerful challenge to an overly abstract and rationalist understanding of theology. "The point of speaking the truth, as opposed to deceiving, is not to win the contest in whose 'mind' can better correspond to the actual 'facts,' but to name adequately what transpires between people" (Exclusion and Embrace, 261).

When I first read Volf he was like a breath of fresh air because he seemed to point toward the possiblility of valuing the 'other' for his/her own sake (as opposed to some kind of evangelistic project). As I reconsider his work today he also seems to offer a significant challenge to contemporary pluralistic dogma. I'm very much looking forward hearing what he has to say on this fascinating and important subject.

Is Free Thought Possible?

2006-10-03T09:01:00.000-06:00

Some recent reading has got me curious about the idea of human inquiry (or the pursuit of knowledge) and whether or not it is possible to do this 'freely'. This question was addressed by contrasting the way people have thought about 'inquiry' during three distinct periods of human history. Essentially the questions being asked are: 'What is the point of knowledge?' and 'What authorities will we use to validate that knowledge?'

The pre-modern period (essentially pre-Enlightenment) saw inquiry as having the basic goal of uniting a person with the source of truth itself, believed to be God. I should quickly add that this was the case within European history and I do not presume to speak on how others have addressed the question. So during this period university education culminated with the study of theology, the 'queen of the sciences'. Knowledge was validated by appealing to accepted authorities and those authorities ruled out some ideas, often in ways that most of us would find restrictive and, at times, oppressive. But knowledge was seen to be part of a larger goal and the path toward that goal ran through submission to those who had previously travelled that path.

The modern period (Enlightenment to the mid 1900s roughly) reacted strongly against the idea of any kind of external authority controlling the search for knowledge. The rational individual was enthroned as the ultimate authority and ideas were evaluated according to this universally accepted (at least in theory) standard of reason. The answer to the question of the 'point' of knowledge was that knowledge was to be valued and sought 'for its own sake'. Knowledge was something intrinsically worthwhile and did not serve some purpose beyond itself.

The postmodern period has reacted (inconsistently, in my opinion) against the modern ideal of reason as the only tool available to investigate and explain the world. Knowledge is not 'out there,' it is always someone's interpretation of the 'facts'. Facts are not self-evident but they require someone to make sense of them. People are not neutral, rational observers of the world; rather, they are personally invested and bring their own assumptions to the process of inquiry. The motive behind inquiry is neither the pursuit of God nor the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake. Rather, the pursuit of knowledge is, in postmodern eyes, the pursuit of power. Inquiry becomes a process of deconstructing the biases and agendas behind certain claims to knowledge (mostly metaphysical claims) and resisting the efforts of the 'knowledgeable' to use their views to oppress others.

Of these three options it seems that both the pre-modern and post-modern views of inquiry recognize the fact that 'free thought' is essentially impossible. Pre-moderns leaned heavily on received authorities (church and Scripture to cite two inflammatory examples), post-moderns see human ideas as the products of social forces that (at least partially) determine what is thought and valued. Only the modern view holds out some hope for 'free thought' but that seems to many to be hopelessly naive in that it ignores the fact that 'our ideas are often as much a product of 'who we are' as 'what we think'.

So is the 'free-thinker' a mythical creature after all?

Romeo Dallaire

2006-09-28T09:16:00.000-06:00

I had the chance to listen to Romeo Dallaire give the 2006 Schumiatcher Lecture at TCU Place last night and left the evening with a renewed sense of admiration of a courageous and visionary leader as well as a bit of lingering confusion over what it was that Dallaire was envisioning for the future. Dallaire is someone who deserves to be listened to simply on the basis of what he has lived through and the leadership he has shown in the face of unimaginable chaos so I'll state at the outset that it was a privilege to listen to this man speak.

Dallaire's topic was 'Human Leadership' but he really covered a lot of different issues; from the lack of true leadership within Canadian politics to the ethics of a pre-emptive strike in Darfur; from the Canadian role in Afghanistan to the prospects of our global future in what he called a 'New World Disorder'. Throughout the lecture Dallaire continually reminded us that all human beings are of equal value and that this ought to be the foundation for human leadership. This is a simple yet profoundly necessary reminder.

Dallaire tried to make the case for a renewed vision of what Canada could contribute toward the global establishment of human rights and equality and he argued that we need political leaders who are willing to embrace that vision of what Canada could be and to act, not according to the fluctations of opinion polls but according to that vision.

I was very surprised to hear Dallaire say that he genuinely believed that within a few centuries humanity would come together and rid itself of the violence and conflict that has wracked the 20th century (and, I would argue, most of human history). The source of this salvation will come, oddly enough, through NGOs committed to advancing the cause of human rights (within the context of a liberal democracy).

Far be it from me to criticize Romeo Dallaire but I was a bit confused by this utopian vision of the future, especially given the things that Dallaire himself has witnessed. The path to global peace may the universal acceptance of the dogma of human rights but it seems to me that the failure of the UN in Rwanda (and now Darfur) was based precisely on the fact that rich Western countries were more interested in self-preservation than the possibility of taking casualties in the cause of protecting black Africans. Essentially we were too concerned about ourselves to care about Rwanda, too concerned with our own rights to safeguard the rights of others.

If our collective future lies in our willingness to give our lives for the advancement of human rights, I'll be honest, I'm not optimistic. This requires a genuine (and costly) love of neighbour that I see little evidence of within a society that is characterized more by self-indulgence than self-sacrifice. I hope Dallaire's optimism is well-founded. I hope our future will be one where things like Rwanda and Darfur never take place again. But I think we as a race are plagued by a paradoxical recognition that we should do more in the service of others but not if it costs too much.

What a Goal!

2006-09-27T15:01:00.000-06:00

Ten Propositions on Hell

2006-09-25T11:34:00.000-06:00

I came across an interesting post on called Ten Propositions on Hell over at Faith and Theology. A couple of the ones that I found intriguing:

"1. What is hell? Hell cannot be known in and of itself. As a negative to a positive, hell can only be known as the antithesis of heaven. Heaven is life with God, hell is existence without God."

"8. Hell is not about what God does, hell is about what we do, about the horrendous evils humans commit. We trivialise these evils and betray the world’s victims if we deny the reality of hell."

A couple of quotes that sum the matter up nicely (in my view):

"Of one thing we can be sure about anyone who knows the population of hell: he himself will be in the census."

"Thus the church will not preach hell – 'the gospel at gunpoint' – 'it will preach the overwhelming power of grace and the weakness of human wickedness in face of it' (Karl Barth)."

If You Knew God Would Answer...

2006-09-22T13:14:00.000-06:00

Speaking of disengagement from religion... I just got my latest edition of the MB Herald (our denominational magazine) and there was a brief feature on an initiative of the Family Life Network called The Postcard to God Project. The idea is fairly simple, viewers are invited to complete the following sentence: "If you knew God would answer... what would you ask? Some of the responses are quite personal, many indicate a lot of frustration and pain. All of them seem to indicate that interest in the big questions hasn't gone away.

Life Stages and Spiritual Interest

2006-09-18T11:59:00.000-06:00

Some interesting research from the Barna Group has just come out that suggests that the twenties and thirties are often years when people disengage from the church and faith. This is interesting given the fact that the teenage years are those in which people are most spiritually active. According to Barna fully 61% of young adults in American have had some exposure to the church during their teenage years but have since walked away and would consider themselves 'spiritually disengaged' as opposed to the 20% who are still spiritually active at age 29).

The author raises the quesiton of whether or not this is a normal 'life-stage' that people go through as they move from adolesence to adulthood or whether this is something that is unique to this point and time and this particular generation. Is this a natural progression as people learn to be self-sufficient and reject the 'dependencies' of their youth. The concluding question, the one I find most interesting is: What will make for a sustainable faith?

This is an age group of people that I work with on a daily basis and I am very interested in students finding in the Christian faith something that will sustain them throughout their lives, not just as young adults. So what's missing? Why the disconnect? If the research is correct it seems like youth and old age are the two stages of life that demonstrate the most 'spiritual interest'. That leaves a fairly large chunk in the middle along with some significant unanswered questions.

How To Create Cynics

2006-09-05T17:13:00.000-06:00

Here's an interesting perspective on one of the root causes of cynicism within the church:

"One of the greatest causes of cynicism among Christians is the way we lather God-talk over our lives in order to obscure realities we consider too painful to discuss directly... Hiding behind a veneer of God-talk that everyone knows is just a way of obscuring painful realities invites cynicism about all our words about God."

David Gushee has some really interesting thoughts in this article about the Christian 'Code' and how we dutifully adhere to it as we navigate the trials of life. Definitely worth a read.

Free Derek Webb

2006-09-04T09:01:00.000-06:00

Some of you may have heard of Derek Webb, a former singer with Caedmon's Call. Anyways, I'm not a huge fan of a lot of contemporary Christian music but it seems like this guy is up to some interesting things (although he'd probably resist the label). He's decided to give away his latest album (you can download it here and read about his motivation here) and I think it's worth a listen. Here's the lyrics to a particularly good track:

A New Law

Don't teach me about politics and government
Just tell me who to vote for

Don't teach me about truth and beauty
Just label my music

Don't teach me how to live like a free man
Just give me a new law

I don't wanna know if the answers aren't easy
So just bring it down from the mountain to me

I wanna new law (2x)
Gimme that new law

Don't teach me about moderation and liberty
I prefer a shot of grape juice

Don't teach me about loving my enemies

Don't teach me how to listen to the Spirit
Just give me a new law

What's the use in trading a law you can never keep
For one you can that cannot get you anything
Do not be afraid
Do not be afraid
Do not be afraid

Shake Hands With the Devil

2006-09-03T08:29:00.000-06:00

I just finished a belated reading of Shake Hands With the Devil, Romeo Daillaire's gut-wrenching account of the Rwandan genocide of 1993. It's difficult to know what to do with a book like this. Rwanda's is essentially a story of Western abuse and failure, from Belgian colonial rule to the paralyzed indifference of UN power-brokers during the civil war and genocide.

It's a painful story to read on almost every level. From the millions of lives brutally cut short to the ethnic hatred that turned an entire population into murderers; from the impotence of the U.N. to the frank admission of one U.S. general that it would take 80,000 Rwandan deaths to justify one American casualty. It's simply an awful story that reveals the very worst about us as a species. Daillaire's subtitle, "The Failure of Humanity in Rwanda" is about as accurate a description as you could expect.

This is a story that challenges the most deeply-held beliefs of everyone who reads it. It is a painful challenge to all who hold to the providence of a good God and are honest enough to ask the question of why the millions of Rwandan prayers for help went unanswered. It is a challenge to moral relativists who dislike the idea of objective good and evil and are left without a vocabulary to describe what happened. It is a challenge to doctrinaire proponents of human rights (at the UN or anywhere else) who are unwilling to back up those beliefs with actions that demonstrate a sense of responsibility toward those whose rights they want to protect.

The book ultimately raises a host of questions and leaves the reader with a mixture of guilt, disgust, despair and general pessimism toward the future. In an interview in January of last year Daillaire was asked why, in spite of the lessons of Rwanda, the international community was still allowing similar crises to occur in places like Darfur. This was his response:

"Fundamentally, the gain is not there for them and the risks are too high. The gain is not there because the sense of responsibility to human beings is simply not holding water against the self-interested demands imposed by the governments and on the governments by their people and structures. So we’ve simply become more overt with the prioritization of humanity, where some count more than others. And unless there is a gain to be had, then governments will not risk their administrations on potential casualties and difficulties in these complex missions of intrastate conflict in foreign lands." (emphasis added)

It seems so cruel that such unimaginable events could come down to something as basic as human selfishness.

The Function of Beliefs

2006-08-30T08:29:00.000-06:00

A brief follow-up to the previous post. I listened to the podcast that one commentor recommended and found it quite interesting. The discussion was basically around the psychology of belief. Why do we believe the things that we do? What kind of 'knowledge' is possible and how do faith and reason play into these? The discussion featured a cognitive scientist, a science commentator, and a theologian.

The cognitive scientist argued that there are basically two reasons why we have beliefs:

Because they seem to be good inferences based on our experiences - we believe the things that we do because they seem like the most plausible explanations of life as we encounter it. He summarized it this way, "I don't think we can tolerate experiences that don't have explanations."
Because they make us feel good - we believe the things that we do because they support the vision of the world and ourselves that we find most desirable.

An example that was given was of a survey that was taken at a university psychology department. The question asked was: "With respect to your colleagues, do you consider yourself an better-than-average classroom instructor?" Survey results indicated that 85% believed that they were. On what were these beliefs based? Some probably responded based on positive feedback from students, others likely had a deep desire to be above average and came up with a belief that supported it. So we can see both motivations for belief at work here.

Interestingly enough the cognitive scientist went on to argue that both reasons for belief were valid as long as we are self-conscious of what those reasons are. Here he used religion as an example of the second motivation - we believe things because they make us feel good. He argued that if it could be demonstrated that belief in God made us all treat one another better then it would be perfectly appropriate for us to believe in God even if we all knew that belief to be untrue.

This split is characteristic of the common contemporary split between faith and reason (or 'facts' and 'values'). Reason addresses the first motivation - helping us to understand and explain our experience in the world of facts. Faith is what we use to make ourselves feel good and cope with whatever metaphysical questions seem most important to us. We select whichever values seem best to us with the full recognition that they serve no purpose other than the preservation of our fragile selves.

I think there are clear examples of both of these motivations at work in the variety of reasonable and ridiculous things that people believe. I just don't think the division is quite so neat. To argue that faith is useful only insofar as it makes us feel better and helps us cope apart from any truth content is to make a prior decision that rules out religious belief altogether. That in itself is a religious decision in favour of secularism, a decision that should be admitted and justified.

I think a plausible argument could be made that this is one more example of a belief that has its basis in both motivations, both the desire to explain the world and the desire to sustain a vision of the world and ourselves that those who hold it happen to prefer.

Thanks jc for the link.

A Step of Faith

2006-08-21T17:04:00.000-06:00

"Our knowing of the real world is a compromise between what is 'there' on the one hand and our personal perspectives on the other. We cannot get at the world 'as it really is', for we cannot cease to be physically, socially and historically lcoated beings. We may move to view reality from somewhere else, either actively or imaginatively, but in doing so we shall simply have adopted another perspective upon it. In the final analysis, we commit ourselves to that perspective which seems to offer the most satisfactory account of the reality which lies beyond ourselves. The real world, in other words, is something that we commit ourselves to in a step of faith."

Trevor Hart, Faith Thinking, 145

Interesting implications here for the concept of an idea or action being 'faith-based' (as opposed to something more objective).

Hard-Wired to Look Ahead

2006-08-18T09:30:00.000-06:00

Allow me a sentimental follow-up to the previous post. I was drawn to the Augustine quote because he put his finger on something I think many of us know intuitively. Experiences of joy in this life are always tainted by the fact that we know they will not last and the fact that we long for something more permanent is, in my estimation, a significant clue as to the purpose of why we're here.

I learn many lessons from my kids but of all the lessons I have learned in my three short years of parenthood this one stands out: children have a fundamentally eschatological outlook on life. They seem to be hard-wired to look ahead, to look forward to an ideal future. Part of this may be the simple frustrations and limitations of childhood ('if I was bigger I could...') but I wonder if they aren't intuitively aware of realities that we easily forget.

Earlier this summer we celebrated a climactic moment as a family - we celebrated Julie's third birthday. This was the culmination of six months of eager anticipation, of daily interrogations regarding just when the big day would arrive. The interesting thing to me was that in the months leading up to the party, almost every joy that Julie experienced needed to be a part of her birthday party as well. If she met a new friend she would wonder if this person could come to her party. If she got a new shirt she asked if she could wear it at her party. If she had fun with a new activity we would have to do it at her party. If she saw an interesting object of nearly any variety, she wanted to have that object at her party. It was almost as if this day would be the culmination of every positive experience she had had throughout the year. If something good happened, it stood to reason that it should be a part of her birthday party.

So the birthday party has come and gone (there's always next year) but that hasn't stopped the dreaming. Many positive experiences are now projected onto a future time 'when I'm bigger' and this provides comfort for the fact that she can't do whatever she wants right now. There's also the 'maybe we can do that again sometime' line that comes up literally every time she enjoys herself. Like most kids, she is delightfully able to 'live in the moment' yet there seems to be this future orientation present as well.

I guess what I'm observing is that my daughter looks ahead, not just in the restless way that children want to grow up, but in a way where she seems to recognize that joy is supposed to be something that lasts more than just a couple of hours. This seems to produce a vision of the future that makes the present more understandable and the inevitable pain of bedtime at the end of a fun evening more tolerable.

I think this is the way we function as human beings. We need a vision of the end to help us make sense of the present. Is this wishful thinking or a sign meant to point to something beyond us?

Loving God (According to Augustine)

2006-08-17T16:25:00.000-06:00

I've been re-reading parts of Augustine's Confessions in preparation for the fall when I came across a familiar passage that dealt with the question of what loving God actually looks like. 'Loving God' is another one of those catch-phrases that is often used in Christian circles but not often defined. How exactly do you love an invisible being? I, for one, find the question very difficult to answer but I thought Augustine has done a compelling job.

"But what do I love when I love you? Not the beauty of the body nor the glory of time, not the brightness of light shining so friendly to the eye, not the sweet and various melodies of singing, not the fragrance of flowers... not manna and honey, not limbs welcome to the embraces of the flesh: it is not these that I love when I love my God.

And yet I do love a kind of light, melody, fragrance, food, embracement when I love my God; for he is the light, the melody, the fragrance, the food, the embracement of my inner self - there where is a brilliance that space cannot contain, a sound that time cannot carry away, a perfume that no breeze disperses, a taste undiminished by eating, a clinging together that no satisfaction will sunder. This is what I love when I love my God."

The imagery will not immediately grab everyone but I like how he begins by saying what it doesn't mean to love God. In short, he doesn't 'love God' by loving the good things of life (food, sex, natural beauty, music). These things are good but they are all tainted by the same thing - they do not last.

But he does see in these experiences something that points beyond them. That 'something' is the 'eternity' that, according to the author of Ecclesiastes, God has set in our hearts; the constant and relentless yearning for more than the painfully temporary pleasures of life. Loving God may mean celebrating the hope that this 'eternity' is already real in the person of God.

Ten Things My Three Year Old Can Do That I Wish I Could Too

2006-08-16T13:43:00.000-06:00

1. Eat almost everything with my hands
2. Sleep for twelve hours per day
3. Scream when something doesn't go my way
4. Enjoy the actions for silly songs
5. Hug someone while I'm mad at them
6. Stand on the end of the driveway and wave at every car that passes
7. Trust everyone older than me
8. Get excited about the same story every night for six months
9. Believe an explanation without doubting
10. Stare

What is 'the Point'?

2006-08-10T15:13:00.000-06:00

What do Christians believe the future holds in terms of the ultimate goal or 'point' of history? Some recent Newbigin reading has helped clarify this question for me. Christian belief about the future generally falls into one of two categories:

Christian hope is placed in the gradual improvement of the world until God's rule is perfected and realized here on earth.
Christian hope is placed in a future immortal state beyond death where they will share in the life of God forever.

Newbigin rejects the idea of progress (understood as humanity's inevitable improvement of life here on earth) as unrealistic and naive. The 'point' cannot be restricted exclusively to the here and now. Aside from the fact that our faith in progress has been severely damaged by a century of unprecedented warfare and violence, the reality is that death mocks all of our achievements. Even if we managed to create a world of peace and harmony that effort would be fatally undermined from the outset by its temporary nature. Whatever goodness we come up with is doomed to the 'rubble of history'.

He also rejects the understanding of 'the point' as being individual immortality in heaven. His critique is based on the idea that this vision of Christian hope means that human history and the world itself are essentially meaningless.

"This purely individualistic conception of the Kingdom robs human history as a whole of its meaning. According to this view, the significance of life in this world is exhaustively defined as the training of individual souls for heaven. Thus there can be no connected purpose running through history as a whole, but only a series of disconnected purposes for each individual life."

So if Christian hope is not centered (in an ultimate sense) around either the idea of progress or the idea of individual souls going to heaven then what is 'the point'.

Newbigin centers Christian hope on the resurrection of Christ. This world and the world to come are related in the same way that Jesus' pre-resurrection life was related to his post-resurrection life. Jesus' life before he died was like ours, characterized by limitations, hardship and ultimately mortality. But Jesus was identifiably the same person after his resurrection. Most people recognized him, he ate and drank and had what seems to have been a physical body. Essentially his post-resurrection life looks like a perfected version of his pre-resurrection life.

Newbigin argues that this is what the future holds, both for ourselves and for our world. Death first, and then resurrection. There is continuity between our current world and the world to come. We will be recognizable, our world will be recognizable, life will be recognizable. It will not be exactly the same but neither will it be something entirely different.

This seems to answer the question: "How does what I do now matter?" Newbigin is not optimistic about our ability to perfect the world on our own. Yet he is not interested in a vision of heaven that makes us irresponsible and careless in the present ("just holding on for eternity"). Instead he believes that our efforts will not be lost but will survive into the world to come as we commit them to the God who raised Jesus from the dead.

"Christian action... is a kind of prayer offered to God that he may hasten his kingdom. It is a prayer that he can and will answer, because it is one where praying itself makes us and the world more fit to receive the answer."

Belief as a Crutch?

2006-08-05T23:42:00.000-06:00

Via ThinkChristian:

In a brief column at First Things, Michael Novak analyzes the oft-used argument that religious belief is a crutch for those who cannot cope with the cold realities of life. Belief, so this argument goes, is a self-indulgent comfort for people too weak deal honestly with life as it is.

Novak argues that is often the serious believer who feels the pain of living as we do in a world of such endless suffering. Anyone who believes in a good God must feel deeply the intense confusion of living in a world charged with God's goodness yet grotesquely marred by evil. Why would God allow things like war, poverty, and the suffering of the innocent. These gut-wrenching issues would not seem to present as much of a problem for someone with no religious belief.

"It has sometimes seemed to me," Novak writes, "that the persistence of horrible evils in the world creates no discomfort at all for consistent atheists. Why should the world be otherwise, since everything springs from absurdity, chance, meaninglessness?"

I don't believe that there are many consistent atheists so I'm not trying to say 'only Christians can grieve at evil and injustice'. I think the fact that we all have similar reactions to evil is good reason to believe that there is a common sense of 'the good' that we share. But I have always found the critique of belief as escapism to be a bit absurd and this column seems to highlight some key points of weakness.

So belief is not a pathway to comfort but to the potential of increased suffering. I've been having some conversations lately about the loss of the idea of lament in our churches. Perhaps this could be a way to deal with the discomfort and sorrow that comes along with the joy and hope of belief in a good God.

Evangelicalism and Salvation

2006-08-04T11:04:00.000-06:00

I've been reading up on evangelical history in preparation for a new course this fall and the definition of 'evangelicalism' is still proving elusive. I am getting some exposure to some of the main thinkers that have shaped the movement as a whole.

One of the most significant evangelical theologians of the past half-century has been Millard Erickson and it is in the summary of Erickson that I've been reading that I'm finding one of the more confusing elements of evangelical theology. Early on Erickson says that the starting point for theology is the effort to hold the beliefs that Jesus held and taught and to explain and organize those beliefs.

Later on he offers a definition of evangelicalism itself: "Evangelicalism is, at its core, a view of the nature of salvation. According to evangelicalism, salvation involves regeneration, a supernatural transformation based upon Jesus Christ's atoning death and received through an exercise of faith in him."

This is a fairly standard definition of salvation. It's the one that I grew up with and I think it would strike most evangelicals as fairly close to the heart of the issue. The problem is it wasn't a belief that Jesus held or taught. If we take Erickson's earlier definition of theology as the business of "explaining the beliefs that Jesus held and taught" then the evangelical definition of salvation is slightly off the mark, or at least out of order.

If we take Jesus' own teaching as our starting point for our idea of salvation then we would have to start with his teaching of the kingdom of God. Jesus did not preach a gospel of individual forgiveness of sins based on his atoning death. He couldn't have, he hadn't died yet. We may eventually come to that idea eventually but it's not where we should start.

Jesus believed that, in his own life and ministry, God's kingdom, God's 'world' was drawing near to ours. This is based on the basic Jewish belief that one day God would finally rule his people (not in some 'spiritual' sense but literally, from Jerusalem) and eradicate evil once and for all. The present age would give way to a future 'golden age' in which all the evils of the present would be overcome. There was not a strong sense of an 'afterlife' at this point, the idea was that the golden age would be this world (particularly the national life of Israel) without the problems.

Jesus announced that this transition was happening and that it was happening in him. He announced that God's rule was at hand. The problem was that it looked different than anyone had expected. Instead of overthrowing of Roman authority, Jesus taught love of enemies, instead of eradicating evil, Jesus took the worst of it on himself and triumphed over it through, paradoxically, the power of self-sacrificing love.

I think we have to start here. Jesus' message was a message about this kind of kingdom. It was an invitation to join it and to see the kingdom as the focal point of all of human existence - both here and now and as the future our world is heading toward.

In my opinion the standard evangelical definition of salvation obscures this point. It's not that I don't believe that my participation in this kingdom is based on my faith in Christ - I do. It's just that this definition has led to the oversimplification that 'salvation' is about individual souls getting into heaven through the mechanism of faith in Christ. That leads to a tragic disconnect between 'the kingdom' and our lives here and now.

I agree with Erickson that Christian theology should start with Jesus. I'm not sure that evangelical theology has always been faithful to that task.

Dueck Hummer

2006-08-02T14:06:00.000-06:00

In honour of my earlier post on this subject I thought I'd post this inspiring picture. If you look closely the license plate reads 'hummer' as well. I have seen my destiny. Thanks Doug & Sherry for capturing this Kodak moment.

Theological Frustration

2006-08-01T08:52:00.000-06:00

From Waving or Drowning?

Here's a needed reminder on the risk of abstraction in theology, especially in light of the limitless crises that seem to afflict our world. For those of us who find it easy and interesting to speak about God these are disturbing words.

So It Can Be Done After All

2006-07-31T20:04:00.000-06:00

For most people the term 'evangelical' is one that needs serious rehabilitation if it can be salvaged at all (see here for a clarification of the term that I've found to be helpful). In its contemporary usage 'evangelicalism' is thought to be synonymous with Republicanism, nationalism, militarism and a bunch of other 'isms' that are seen by many to be out of step with the teachings of Christ. As an evangelical Christian it can be quite discouraging and frustrating to get lumped in with stereotypes like these so it was refreshing to hear of an example of a church that is trying to challenge this definition.

The church in question is Woodland Hills Church in St. Paul, Minnesota and the pastor is Gregory Boyd who is probably better known for some of his thoughts on 'open theism' which is a theological position that questions the extent of God's knowledge of the future. In this case Boyd challenges some pretty significant issues that are seen by many to be standard planks in the evangelical platform. One example is his challenge of the uniqueness of the American nation in God's agenda in the world. “I am sorry to tell you that America is not the light of the world and the hope of the world. The light of the world and the hope of the world is Jesus Christ.”

This didn't come without some fallout for Boyd. His church lost 1000 members and came up $3 million short on its building campaign as a result of this sermon series. A colleague of Boyd's had this assessment of him: "Greg is an anomaly in the megachurch world. He didn’t give a whit about church leadership, never read a book about church growth. His biggest fear is that people will think that all church is is a weekend carnival, with people liking the worship, the music, his speaking, and that’s it."

Apparently most of those who left Boyd's church were white and middle class (undoubtedly significant contributors to the budget). Boyd himself has the following assessment of the shakeup in this church: "I don’t regret any aspect of it at all. It was a defining moment for us. We let go of something we were never called to be. We just didn’t know the price we were going to pay for doing it."

Thanks Ryan for passing this along.

Time for a Hummer

2006-07-27T23:23:00.000-06:00

Well this is a relief. Here I had been worried that high gas prices had to do with global supply issues and Middle East security when in fact it has nothing to do with either of those catastrophes. It turns out Exxon's outgoing CEO simply needs a more comfortable retirement package. I hope $350 million will be enough for Lee Raymond to eke out a living in his golden years.

And for all of you who think that oil companies are shameless profiteers cashing in on unfortunate circumstances in the Middle East I think today's statistics can put those irrational fears to rest. People throw around numbers in the millions and billions so casually but the fact is Exxon is making a paltry $1318 per second. Seriously, that's hardly enough to get me to Vancouver and back. Actually, according to the article it's enough to go back and forth between Los Angeles and New York in a Hummer but who's keeping track.

Update: Our very own Star Phoenix has an interesting take on the latest increase to 119/L in Saskatoon. Apparently we're driving as much or more as we ever did so our rage against these prices isn't making too much of a difference in how much we use. Their probably is some kind of 'price ceiling' that will force us to make significant adjustments to our driving habits. At a broad level, it seems that we haven't hit it yet.

Making the Most of College: Asking Big Questions

2006-07-27T13:56:00.000-06:00

As July draws to a close I'm starting to wonder about what the next school year holds. Every year has a certain routine to it but every year is also an 'unrepeatable moment' because of the people and circumstances that shape it. That makes college an exciting place to be for staff and students alike. For most students life can get very congested very quickly, whether it is extracurricular activities or having to work to pay off the rising educational costs. There is no end to the things that demand a student's attention and it can be easy to lose sight of purpose in light of the incessant demands of daily life.

I came across an series of articles entitled 'Making the Most of College' via ThinkChristian and I thought one of them was pretty good. It's a challenge for students to sieze the opportunity to ask big questions during this brief, but formative time of their lives. The author, Gideon Strauss, sees the college years as critical for (usually) young people as it is during these years that they take big steps in discovering who they are, what they believe and what they want to do with themselves. The tragedy is that most contemporary education has largely settled for answering the 'What should I do' question alone. 'What should my career be?' is an important question but surely the questions 'Who am I?' and 'What do I believe? are no less important. Strauss offers this vision of what a college could offer:

"The college years, in offering a space for heartbreak and wonder, and strategic argument, offers a space in which to begin to realize and answer calling."

So if college is a 'space in which to realize and answer calling' what kinds of 'big questions' should we be wrestling with? Strauss has seven questions (which he elaborates on in the article) that he considers to be most significant in this process:

What do I love?
What do I believe?
Where do I belong?
Who am I?
What hurt needs healing in the world?
What potential waits to be realized?
What is to be done?

I suppose anyone in education (of whatever variety) hopes to see students care about questions like these. Obviously there is a whole lot more to the college experience than wrestling with difficult and abstract questions like these. I would hope, however, that there is not significantly less. So for all the exiled students out there, Bethany or otherwise, my hope is that you find the 'space' to pursue these questions in the months ahead.

Another Point of View

2006-07-24T12:10:00.000-06:00

I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that some viewpoints in the current telling of the story in Lebanon are leaving me frustrated. My frustration has been not so much with the media 'taking sides' in their reporting, I find myself 'taking sides' depending on what I'm reading or hearing. If I'm listening to simplistic analyses on the side of either Israel or Hezbollah (analyses which invariably end up demonizing the other and laying blame for the entire situation with them) it can become very easy to take the opposite side in response.

My frustration is rather with the nature of the media itself. In a sound-byte world it is difficult to present stories with sensitivity to the complexity that is a part of any conflict, especially one that is rooted in centuries worth of historical factors.

I came across an article called "Another Point of View: Evangelical Blindness in Lebanon" via "Waving or Drowning" this morning. In it Martin Accad, academic dean of the Arab Baptist Seminary in Lebanon, gives a needed perspective on the whole conflict, particularly for those of us from the evangelical corner of the world. He is specifically responding to an earlier article by David Gushee, one that he felt minimized the suffering of the Lebanese people and advanced a pro-Israel perspective while ignoring the injustice taking place within Lebanon.

As a Lebanese Christian he offers a scathing attack on the indifference of the West toward the suffering of his people. He especially critical of Christians who assume that their faith automatically puts them in the corner of Israel and against 'the Arabs' because of some combination of twisted biblical interpretation and apocalyptic eschatology.

"It is striking how normally highly reasonable and spiritually aware people can suddenly lose any sense of ethical, let alone Christian, balance when it comes to Middle East conflicts involving modern political Israel."

I don't expect that many will agree with everything Accad has to say. But it is surely worth listening to a fellow Christian describe the effects of this war on a country and a people that he loves. As a footnote: David Gushee has offered a personal response to Accad's article. I only wish this kind of give and take could take place at a diplomatic level as well.

Why I Dislike the News

2006-07-19T23:01:00.000-06:00

In the words of Lebanese prime minister Fuad Saniora, Lebanon is being "torn to shreds" as the war with Israel continues. It was the heaviest day yet in terms of Lebanese casualties. On the other side of the border, two Israeli children in Nazareth were killed by a Hezbollah rocket earlier today. The tragedy unfolding on both sides of the border is difficult to comprehend, especially from the perspective of the comfortable West.

So we do what we can, we stare at our TVs trying to understand, trying to make sense of the images that are being flashed before our eyes, searching for some clue as to the meaning of this whole mess.

I tuned to the news tonight for who knows what. I feel like I need to know what's going on over there even though my knowledge can make little difference. So what did I find on 'The National' tonight? A fifteen minute expose on why it's taking Canada longer to get its tourists and expats out of Lebanon than other Western countries like Italy, France, Germany and even the USA.

Peter Mansbridge and his gaggle of hand-wringing reporters spent almost the first twenty minutes of the newscast on this subject (it was 10:17 when they got to covering the war itself). It seems that our national inferiority complex knows no limits. Instead of drawing attention to the real suffering and real injustice being faced by so many helpless victims, we were bemoaning the fact that France and Italy were rescuing their tourists faster than we were.

I am not trying to minimize the real suffering of those who are trying to get out of Lebanon. Nor am I suggesting that our government should not be doing what is possible to evacuate our citizens. It just seems like an odd way to 'tell the story' of a war that surely has more critical plotlines than these. It is definitely an ordeal to have to sleep in a foreign embassy for a night or two while waiting for a ship to arrive to take you home. It is quite another to wonder whether or not your house will be standing at the end of the day.

I have just finished reading a biography of C.F. Klassen, a tireless advocate for the cause of Mennonite refugees following the Russian Revolution and the second World War. In many ways there are similar issues at play here. Huge masses of displaced and desperate people. Massive relief efforts that never seem to be able to deal adequately with the need.

Yet throughout this book I sensed a different tone. There was misery and frustration to be sure but there was also a quiet resignation to the fact that suffering in times of war was an inevitability, one that should be struggled against with every means possible but one that could not reasonably be avoided. There was also an overwhelming gratitude on the part of the refugees that were allowed into Canada and other countries.

I'm sure there are similar stories unfolding in Lebanon these days. I'm sure there is heroism and sacrifice, gratitude and goodwill on the part of all those involved in both the evacuation effort and the peace effort. I'm just starting to doubt that I'll ever hear those stories since they somehow don't get the same TV ratings.

Personal Destiny and Selfishness

2006-07-19T14:18:00.000-06:00

I've now had approximately three weeks to digest the material from my 'History of Protestant Spirituality' course and it's been interesting to try to understand the different ways in which Protestants have understood themselves in relation to God. From Luther's 'theology of the cross' and its reminder that God is experienced in suffering to Pentecostalism's triumphalist 'second baptism'; from the snake-handlers of the Appalachians to the common-sense approach of the Anglicans, it was an intriguing survey.

One course reading that has really got me thinking was called "The Social Gospel as Personal Salvation" by Walter Rauschenbusch, a prominent liberal theologian from the early part of last century. His basic argument was that we have misunderstood the fundamental point about 'salvation,' seeing it as a matter of an individual's destiny in the afterlife rather than as a total reorientation of life toward God and others.

His starting point is the definition of the word 'sin' and argues that throughout the Bible the word is associated with something like our word 'selfishness'. Sin is the choice of self over God; it is the choice of self over others. It is the choice to guard my ego, my wealth, my pride, my ideas, my very self from harm by lashing out at others and turning my back on God. So if sin is selfishness, is the gospel of personal spiritual destiny a move away from it?

It's a provocative question that Rauschenbusch asks. His basic point is that if we think that salvation is about getting into heaven after we die then we are still trapped in our selfishness because we are still fixated on ourselves. "As long as men are wholly intent on their own destiny, they do not necessarily emerge from selfishness. It only changes form."

I think there is something to this critique. I don't agree with everything in the article but I think Rauschenbusch is on to something in his argument that salvation must shift the focus off of ourselves and onto God and others (or God through others). This is at the heart of the social gospel. Salvation is not a personal quest for God, it is a deeper engagement with life here and now in the confidence that this is the best possible demonstration of and preparation for the world to come.

Tales From Vancouver

2006-07-08T11:40:00.000-06:00

Well holidays are a week on now and so far things have been pretty enjoyable. We've been in Vancouver visiting my brother and his family and have been having a great time. Aside from reading Helmut Thielicke's warnings about the dangers of theology and watching the hilarious first season of "The Office" I've spent time at the beach and kayaking off the coast of North Vancouver. All this while our kids are enjoying a week and Grandpa and Grandma' house. I'd be posting more often but it wouldn't be nearly as much fun. I'll be sure to discuss something serious and important (i.e. boring) in the weeks ahead. In the meantime, the holidays continue in Fairmont for the next few days; we're meeting up with our kids and Shelley's family for a bit of camping and water fun. After that we may have a stop in Coaldale and then back to Hepburn to get going on our basement. But for now we're loving the West Coast and not exactly counting the days until our return.

Farewell England

2006-07-01T16:44:00.000-06:00

Another World Cup, another early exit for England, this time at the hands of Portugal. As usual they lost it on penalty kicks after playing most of the game with 10 men. Thanks Wayne Rooney for your moment of brilliance, England needed a challenge for the last hour and you sure provided it.

There was one bright spot I guess. England's best player was a Canadian from Calgary. Owen Hargreaves was the only 'Englishmen' who managed to do what 2 out of 3 rec league players could do - score on a penalty kick. In addition to that he was all over the field for the entire afternoon and was named Budweiser Man of the Match. Not bad for a guy most English fans thought didn't belong on the team.

Ah well, now we're down to Germany, Italy, France and Portugal. My heart is with the Germans and I was really impressed with France's victory over Brazil. So I'm pulling for a Germany-France final. Having said that, I'm sure the Italians have already bought off the referee for their semifinal game and will probably make the final. You heard it here first.

Out Of the Loop

2006-06-26T07:01:00.000-06:00

Thanks for the responses to the previous post. It's interesting to hear how different people navigate these questions. I still hope to post some of the key 'shifts' in my own thinking and how those have (I think) helped me to see both God and myself more clearly. Stay tuned.

For now, however, that will have to wait. I'm at the St. Andrew's College in Saskatoon for a one week intensive course called 'The Protestant Spiritual Heritage' this week and holidays will follow shortly after that. So if the posts seem to dwindle over the next few weeks you'll know why.

Plus or Minus

2006-06-22T14:06:00.000-06:00

I make a living (quite fortunately) thinking about and teaching theology. As the days of summer wear on the temptation can be to wonder about the value of this task. Many Christians have a somewhat ambiguous relationship with theology. I see it every January as I get students' first impressions of the word. At best it can serve as a support to those whose faith is wavering. At worst it is a dangerous exercise that distracts people from the 'childlike faith' that we are called to. For most, it is somewhat analagous to advanced calculus. We all know that there are people out there who study it but we're not sure it makes any difference.

As much as I repeat that cliche that 'everyone is a theologian,' I admit to being pessimistic as to whether or not theology will ever enjoy a place of prominence within the church. Yet I remain convinced that how we think about God is critically important, often for reasons that I cannot even fully articulate.

So my question today is for you. I'm interested in stories of how theology has made a difference in your life (either positively or negatively). Has there been a time when a 'shift' has taken place, a new way of thinking about God or life that has made a significant difference for you? How has that helped or hindered your journey with God? Have you found it a worthwhile thing to examine your beliefs in a focused way? Why do you think that this lingering suspicion of theology remains?

For the purposes of this discussion I'm using the term 'theology' to describe any focused or systematic thinking about God and the 'ultimate' questions of life. I believe that all of us are seeking coherence between what we believe and what we experience in life. Theology is simply an attempt to make that coherence explicit.

Feel free to post anonymously, I realize these are personal questions.

Temptation Island and Eschatology

2006-06-16T14:09:00.000-06:00

One of the errors for which evangelical theology should be most sorry is the way it has presented the Christian view of the end of history. I suppose we could debate the very idea of an 'end' of history, many of the world's religions do not see history as a linear process but rather and endless cycle without meaning. But Christianity has always been infused with the idea that we are going somewhere, that history has a purpose and an ultimate destination.

As the church struggled through the Enlightenment it became very threatened by the secular notion of 'progress' and the way it had replaced traditional Christian eschatology. No longer was the hope of heaven central, instead Western culture became convinced that the emergence of a future utopia was only a matter of time as science and reason eradicated the many afflictions that we had to contend with. With the 20th century in the rearview mirror it seems fairly obvious that this utopia has not been realized. Much progress has occurred but in many ways it seems like for every step forward we have taken at least another in the opposite direction.

The basic questions facing the church and the larger culture were (and are), 'Are we going anywhere? Does history have a purpose or a meaning? How is it all going to end?' Since the church could not accept (and history seems to have disproved) the notion of a future paradise ushered in through human ingenuity and technology, the church had to look elsewhere. Over a period of time, especially within the evangelical wing of the church, the 'hope of glory' became an individual's private residence in a future, other-wordly heaven. The 'point' became nothing more than getting into heaven after death and maybe (if fortune smiled) getting raptured and avoiding the process altogether.

Among the many problems with this view is that it means that human history and our participation in it are essentially meaningless apart from serving as a testing ground to see if we'll believe the right things about Jesus. If we 'pass the test' then we get to the real 'point' which is life forever in heaven. God's creation of the world is seen as a cosmic version of 'Temptation Island,' where participants exist in an unreal and impermanent setting in order to see whether or not they can make the right decision. There is surely more to our life on earth than this. As is frequently the case these days, Newbigin is helping to clarify this. He describes the typical evangelical view as follows:

"The destiny of the individual soul becomes the ultimate goal of the whole story; and the whole drama of human history, of politics, of war, of revolution, the whole story of world history, has no meaning and no ending. It is not a drama, it is the only thing that can properly be called a non-stop revue, providing the setting for a series of solo items after which each of the players goes off and received his bouquet privately in the wings. The whole meaning of life is exhausted in the quest for personal immortality. Ego is once more king, dressed out in spiritual garments."

Newbigin (1961), A Faith For This One World?, pp. 97, 98.

I think we have to do better than this. I think the question of what we as Christians are good for is justifiable if we persist with a theology that basically says the world (and its history) is of no value and that our main aim is to endure it, enjoy it (maybe get fairly wealthy off of it) and then fly away to heaven. If this is what we believe then we shouldn't be surprised when people accuse us of having little to offer in the here and now.

"Our individual lives are not separate solo items each of which is to receive its praise or blame off-stage afterwards. We are part of the whole, and the end to which Christ teaches us to look is not our own private and personal bliss but the victory of his love over the whole creation."

Newbigin (1961), A Faith For This One World?, p. 105.

This world is not merely the 'setting for a series of solo performances'. God made the world, God loves the world, God will one day redeem the world. Our confidence in these statments ought to motivate us to contribute wherever we can to making that future a reality today.

In Praise of Blogging (sort of)

2006-06-14T16:16:00.000-06:00

I'm still straddling the fence a bit on this issue but I'll try to summarize a few of my thoughts on what blogs can and cannot do. in my opinion a blog can do the following things reasonably well:

Provide a spark for starting new conversations.
Introduce a new idea and provide some clarity as to how it should be discussed.
Bounce ideas off of different people of diverse backgrounds.
Help people stay current on the thoughts of people who are geographically distant.
Give people the chance to lay out their arguments in relatively orderly fashion.
Provide a way for bloggers to engage in shameless self-promotion and fatherly pride.

A blog cannot:

Replace or simulate a real conversation. In my opinion the 'safety' of commenting from a distance fundamentally changes the nature of a conversation.
Provide for an in-depth discussion of a significant idea or problem. I think that a blog demands novelty and this makes it difficult to consider ideas over a period of more than a couple of days.
Replace the depth of reflection that happens in more face-to-face kinds of conversation. What a person believes is essentially tied up in who they are. If that knowledge is absent then the conversation will be always be limited.
Explain why 'Roundaldo' is still starting for Brazil when he's 20 lbs overweight (slight exaggeration).

Friend to Information, Enemy to Thought?

2006-06-13T08:28:00.000-06:00

I'm still a relative rookie when it comes to the blogosphere but I've been involved long enough to wonder about the way the medium of the blog sometimes affects the message. This was a bit of a concern from the start but I just chalked it up to my hyper-critical tendencies and decided to give it a go.

With that in mind I came across an article called 'Goodbye Blog' by Alan Jacobs, an English professor at Wheaton College. Jacobs argues that blogs are a friend to information but an enemy to thought. I gather that blog-bashing is not all that unusual and sometimes a bit unfair but Jacobs makes a couple of interesting points, particularly on the 'architecture' of blog conversations. The 'comments' format is suspect, he argues, because it rules out the possibility of lingering over an idea or bringing new insights over a period of more than a few days. What if, he asks, I come across an article or other resource that would add to a conversation that happened two weeks ago? Is there any way to restart the conversation aside from emailing the blog's author? This seems to be a real danger if the goal is to make real progress on understanding something more fully.

He also mentions the relative anonymity and 'distance' of blog conversations as an open door to extreme views and escalating tension. Probably the strongest criticism Jacobs has regards the constant demand for novelty and immediacy. This, he argues, makes it difficult to deal with an idea at any serious level because the clock is ticking and the 'audience' is restless. "In terms of how they treat substantive ideas, blogs are not very different from newspapers: they present an idea and then move on, as quickly as possible, to the next idea."

Jacobs also targets those who blog from the academic realm (ouch) and have the utopian idea that the blog is a place where real progress can be made in the development of ideas.

"As vehicles for the development of ideas [blogs] are woefully deficient and will necessarily remain so unless they develop an architecture that is less bound by the demands of urgency—or unless more smart people refuse the dominant architecture... What happens more often than not... is the conversion of really good scholars into really lousy journalists."

Solid critique or intellectual elitism? I'm still mulling this one over.

Munich

2006-06-12T09:55:00.000-06:00

One of the hazards of having a young family is that you don't get to see good movies until much later than the rest of the world. I finally got a chance to have a look at 'Munich' last night at was quite impressed. I wasn't quite sure what to expect because the Palestine-Israel issue is so divisive and the middle ground (if it even exists) is very hard to find.

I thought Spielberg did a good job of representing the anger on both sides of this one while showing how the cycle of revenge affects everyone involved (and often the innocent). The scene where the little girl almost became an innocent victim was quite disturbing because it has played itself out so frequently in reality with a much more tragic ending. The theme of homecoming was also a powerful one and it gave a small glimpse into why this tiny piece of land has become the historical battleground that it has.

There are, of course, no easy answers. It was interesting, however, to watch the points at which the two sides came into face to face contact throughout the movie. I guess that was Spielberg's goal, to point to the faint possibility of healing as conflict ceases to be an abstraction and takes on the character of a relationship.

Let the Games Begin!

2006-06-08T21:47:00.000-06:00

June 9 is upon us! I'm not afraid to admit that I have an unhealthy addiction to the World Cup. Sure Canada is not participating (and maybe never will again) but there's something about the idea of a good chunk of the world's population caring about the same event over a one month period that easy to get swept up in. The sheer passion of the fans is difficult to resist.

This World Cup looks like a good one. The usual suspects are strong but there are a lot of really interesting subplots. Four out of the five teams from Africa (Angola, Ghana, Togo, Ivory Coast) have never participated before. Ecuador is also participating for the first time and Australia is back after a 32 year absence. Little Trinidad and Tobago (pop. one million) will be playing against mighty England. Portugal will be playing one of its former colonies (Angola). Ukraine and Serbia will be playing for the first time as independent nations. Traditional powerhouse Italy is caught in a major corruption scandal back home and will be viewed with cynicism throughout this tournament. Iran's presence is always seen as a minor political issue but at least this time they weren't drawn in a group with the Americans.

As for the favourites: Brazil will always be the favourite but they don't often do well when the tournament is hosted in Europe. Argentina is always strong and the host Germans are a dark horse. My heart says England but my head thinks the Netherlands might surprise the world on the ninth of July. They are in a brutal group with Argentina, Serbia & Montenegro and a very good Ivory Coast side. If they can ever get out of those three games they may be difficult to stop. Whatever happens, it should be an enjoyable month; a great way to console ourselves over the fact that the Stanley Cup will be in (ugh!) Raleigh, North Carolina.

Two Kinds of Pluralism

2006-06-08T07:34:00.000-06:00

Many of you will know that I have an ongoing interest in the question of how to live as a Christian in a pluralistic society. On the surface it seems like an impossibility. Ideological pluralism rules out any kind of exclusive claim on the ground that, given a plurality of opinions, it is arrogant to assume that yours happens to be the right one. Christians claim that Jesus Christ is the way not merely one way, the truth as opposed to an approximation. The two views seem to be irreconcileable.

Is there any way forward? Are the only options a rigid fundamentalism that ignores the issues of plurality and waves the Bible in the air in response or a tepid liberalism that ignores the real truth claims within Christianity and chooses to focus on issues that are more palatable to the contemporary pluralists?

Newbigin has again been helpful for me here. He distinguishes between two kinds of pluralism: Agnostic Pluralism and Committed Pluralism. Agnostic Pluralism is the kind in which, "truth is regarded as unknowable, in which there are no criteria for judging different kinds of belief and behaviour." We, as contemporary Western cultures have clearly decided that there is no criteria for judging between religious beliefs so we have opted for the idea that none of them can be true (or at best, they can only be equally quaint).

Committed Pluralism is, "neither purely objective nor purely subjective but... that which is available to the person who is personally and responsibly committed to seeking the truth and publicly stating his (sic) findings." I like this vision of pluralism because it manages to do what Agnostic Pluralism cannot. It maintains the recognition that plurality exists and is a serious matter for religious belief while at the same time holding onto the belief that there is truth to be found, it is 'out there,' so to speak, and that we as human beings have the responsibility to seek it and to talk about it. In short, this position requires us to invest ourselves in the process of knowing. It will not allow us to retreat into the cowardly position of saying we can't know anything, nor will it allow us to dismiss the views of others as 'wrong' without listening to them.

For Newbigin the issue comes down to personal responsibility. "Both objectivism and subjectivism are ways of evading personal responsiblity for knowing the truth." Objectivism is evasive because it sees reason functioning as a 'neutral third party,' a guarantee of 'rightness' that ignores the unprovable assumptions that lie behind all forms of knowledge. Subjectivism is evasive because it allows us to take real and significant differences between people and trivialize them by saying that truth is only a matter of personal preference and makes no claims upon people independent of themselves.

The key for Committed Pluralism is the willingness of people to take personal responsibility for their views, their 'faith,' to use a loaded word, and to test the coherence of these views against the reality of lived experience and the contradictory views of others. With this personal responsibility must come both the conviction that says, 'I believe this and I believe it to be true for all people,' and the humility that says, 'But I only know in part and I could be missing something important.' This is the personal risk of knowing.

Source: Lesslie Newbigin, Truth to Tell, p. 56ff

Doubt & Commitment

2006-06-05T16:09:00.000-06:00

Jeff has posted some really good thoughts on the role of doubt in the life of discipleship and how it may not be the sign of sickness or disease that we sometimes think. A good quote: "I am beginning to think that lack of faith is not doubt, but the failure to commit."