Category Archives: theology

Random beliefs

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Doug tagged me with this; I’m supposed to “Post a collection of 10 things you believe, ethical, philosophical or theological.”

1. I believe that God is a very great deal less concerned about sexual preference (and even behaviour) than we are.

2. I believe that God is a very great deal less concerned about styles of worship than we are.

3. I believe that there are services of “Christian worship” which qualify under neither heading.

4. I believe that love makes the world go round in a very literal (ie law of physics) sense.

5. I believe that governments consistently cause more problems than they solve, and I especially appreciate the prayer in the BCP that we might be ‘godly and quietly governed’.

6. I believe that the seriousness of climate change is significantly overstated.

7. I believe that all abortions are in every case sinful, but I also believe that on some rare occasions it can be a lesser sin than the alternative.

8. I believe that the church has lost something essential with a shift away from “supernatural” understandings of the faith (eg angels and demons); I also believe that there are problems with such traditional language of the “supernatural”. Should I ever get a chance to scratch the academic itch then I will research the nature of these forms of theological language and try to answer the question ‘what is actually going on during an exorcism?’ I believe that something very real and important takes place, but neither the supernatural nor the secular approaches capture it.

9. I believe that Wittgenstein is not well understood by many (most?) mainstream philosophers, most especially with regard to his understanding of religious language. (He’ll be my principal converation partner if I end up doing that PhD – but I doubt it will be in a Philosophy faculty.)

10. I believe that atheism in the humourless sense is a passing fad and that within perhaps as little as twenty years the likes of Richard Dawkins will be viewed in the same way as, eg, Ron Atkinson was for his language. That does not mean that all atheists will become believers (to think that is to persist in missing the point) – it is to say that at the philosophical level positivism has been comprehensively debunked, and all that’s left are the cultural echoes amongst the half-educated, which will slowly die out.

~~

I’m going to tag: Banksy, Sally, bls and Graham.

Why bother saving the planet?

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I’ve been pondering that conversation that I linked to a while back. I just want to throw out a line of thought and see what people make of it.

If we accept that Peak Oil and the related limits to growth are real, then our present industrial system is unsustainable – ergo [as the Architect says] it WILL come to an end. I expect that to be quite soon, certainly in my hoped/expected lifetime (I’ve just turned 39).

There’s not a lot that we can do to stop that happening. The processes and mechanisms involved are vast, beyond (probably) everyone’s comprehension, and tie in just about every aspect of our existence.

In response to this predicament we might:
– become a survivalist, with the mentality that “I” (or: my family, tribe, nation) will SURVIVE!!!!! I’m sure you’re all familiar with that approach;
– adopt a devil-may-care, laissez-faire, apres-moi-la-deluge form of not caring about it (or ignoring it, which is the same thing) – again, I’m sure people are familiar with forms of that;
– adopt a ‘we must save the planet’ approach and do all that we can to alleviate and minimise the inevitable human suffering.

What I’m exploring is a distinction _within_ the third of these options – although it might look more like the second from some points of view.

Let me bring in some philosophy to take this a bit further, the distinction in ethics between ‘consequentialism’, ‘deontological ethics’ and ‘virtue ethics’.

A consequentialist understanding of ethics says that an action is right or wrong according to what the consequence of the action is. The worth of adopting a low-carbon lifestyle is that it will minimise the problems of climate change.

In contrast to this, the deontological approach says that there is something inherent in the act itself which constitutes its character as good or bad: the worth of adopting a low-carbon lifestyle is something intrinsic to itself.

The virtue ethics approach says that an action is right or wrong according to how it will affect the character of the person making the choice: the worth of adopting a low-carbon lifestyle is assessed by what sort of person you become when you choose that lifestyle.

What I’m getting at is that arguments that take the form ‘we must do X because it will (help to) save the planet’ leave me cold – in part because I don’t like consequentialism as an ethical theory (I’m much more of a virtue ethicist myself, basically an Aristotelean as mediated by Alasdair MacIntyre).

There are various practical reasons why it leaves me cold. I’m very much of the view that we have to be honest about where we stand – that, to a very great extent it is too late to preserve a very great deal of our culture and habits. I also suspect that, even if per impossibile we succeeded(!) in saving the planet, we’d end up realising that we had missed some rather important things; that is, I’m not inspired to make the world safe for modern industrialism! (I should say, I tend to the view that our environmental problems are ultimately symptoms of a more fundamental social justice problem – and that it is the latter that we most need to address).

What motivates me are arguments that say ‘we must do X because it is the right thing to do’ (the deontological approach) or, even better, ‘we must do X (or even a contagiously enthusiastic “Let’s do X!!”) because it allows us to be the people that God has created us to be’. In other words, the inner logic of choosing, eg, a low-carbon lifestyle is completely different in the one case than the other. Wittgenstein once used the comparison of two puppets – one being handled by string from above, one being directly manipulated by a hand inside – the actions might look the same but the forces involved are completely different.

There is a spiritual path through our present predicament which involves, I would say, a trust in a greater providence – the counterpart to abandoning our own pride – and walking in the Way of Life. We can never know all the eventual consequences of our actions; we can’t know – I would say – whether it is possible to ‘save the planet’ or not. Yet we can know that choosing a simpler life, more strongly rooted in our particular local contexts and ecologies, more concerned to nurture social justice, more connected to all that makes for meaningful human relationships and vocations – all these things are the right things to do and help us to become the right sort of people. I think we can let God look after the consequences, for what does he require of us, but to do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly before him?

Caster Semenya and the difference between Wanda and Lord Fanny

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One of the interesting things about the Caster Semenya kerfuffle is how it brings out the inadequacies of essentialist thinking. Sporting discrimination between male and female is predicated on their being an ineradicable difference between the two genders. Contestants have to be placed in one of two boxes ‘male’ and ‘female’. What happens if someone doesn’t qualify under either heading (I have no idea if this lady doesn’t; it just raises the issue)? It brings the classification system itself into question.

This thinking is a key part of what underlies the teaching in Leviticus 18 & 20 that it is an “abomination” for a man to lie with a man. The understanding is (and I’m drawing on Gareth Moore here) that there is a right way for sexual relations to be ordered, and it involves the two parties being members of particular and opposite categories (with male superior to female of course); the boundaries must not be transgressed. Human beings have to fit into the different categories (‘male and female he created them’) and, again, if there are people who don’t fit, it brings the classification system itself into question. Which is why there is the language about ‘the authority of Scripture’ – even if we leave aside questions of consistency, this issue does threaten that authority.

Two of my favourite graphic novel series deal with issues of transvestitism/transsexuality (forgive me if I don’t use the terminology properly), in differing ways. In the Sandman sequence there is a pre-op male to female transsexual called Wanda, who lives as a woman but who, at a key moment in the plot is rejected as a woman (by the Moon) because she has a Y chromosome: she is not acceptable as a female on essentialist grounds. In contrast to this, in The Invisibles, one of the key characters is Lord Fanny, who was born a boy but raised as a girl, and who, in a climactic engagement with the God Mictlantecuhtli is accepted as a witch because she made the God laugh.

What I want to ask is: where are Christians called to stand? Are we with the moon in saying that there is something essential that needs to be safeguarded and preserved – the boundaries are absolute? Or are we with Mictlantecuhtli and prepared to be flexible, allowing our categories to be bent?

For me the answer is pretty clear. We are called to recognise and relate to all people as individuals, not as members of one class or another. In particular, there is such an absence of genuine love in so many places in our world that it seems bizarre not to celebrate love when it can be found.

I see this as a development rooted in Christian understandings – not so much in Scripture as the unfolding of a tradition from that Scripture, specifically the teaching that in Christ there is no male or female etc – in other words, in Christ all the old essentials have been dissolved. Our identity now rests in our relationship with Him and all the other categories can get lost.

In other words:

UPDATE: an interesting article, via AKMA.

Bears killing children

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David Ker asks me how I would preach on 2 Kings 2:23-24, which is the passage where Elisha is insulted by some children, so he calls down some bears to kill and eat them. I’d recommend going to David’s original post and clicking on the links there as I’m not sure I’ve got anything significant to add to some excellent answers already provided. Best answers so far seem to be “I wouldn’t” and “only Jesus is perfect”. So this is a bit of a cop-out, sorry.

Reasonable Atheism (33): Moral generativity

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Just pursuing a theme from the previous post (and it links in with bls’s comment): one of the ways in which I see the humourless atheist position as deficient is that I believe it is severely lacking in moral generativity. I need to explain what I mean by that.

Pursuing the good life involves rules, but it’s not ultimately a matter of following rules. There needs to be some awareness of the good that is sought by the following of rules; in other words, over time, what is most needed is an awareness of when the rules need to be broken in order to preserve what the rules were there for in the first place! This is the Christian debate about Law and Grace, but you don’t have to use theological language to understand the point.

Any creative or craftsman-like endeavour involves an awareness of learning the rules, then learning when to break the rules. There is an aphorism that goes something like: the student follows the rules, the rebel breaks the rules, the master transcends the rules (because both the rebel and the student are equally bound into rule following).

Now, when we are talking about how to navigate our lives, how to determine what is valuable and what is trivial, what sort of shape of life to pursue – Christians have recourse not just to a two-thousand year history of rules and rule development; they also have access to the founding narratives which provide a context within which to argue about whether the rules are right or not. This allows for something new to develop within the understanding of the faith. There is a space within which new forms of rules, and new understandings of the rules, and new understandings of how to assess the rules (ie to look at the rules from above) can come. In other words, there are resources here with which to build a life creatively, not just from an assembly line. This is what I mean by moral generativity.

This is important because whilst human nature remains more or less constant, the cultural situations within which humans find themselves change all the time, and thus the moral discernment needed has to develop over time too. Consider: what is the morality of using a car? We are in a new situation, we need to develop new thinking. Christianity has the resources required to meet this sort of question, as do other wisdom traditions.

I want to know what the moral resources are for a humourless atheist? What are the guiding narratives and structures from which the integrity of a life can be built, which allow a space within which to pursue the good life? Humourless atheism, just does not seem to have this. It is parasitic on other wisdom traditions – principally, but not exclusively, Christianity.

(Of course, as soon as a positive answer is given to this line of questioning, the humourless atheist is no longer such – now there is a positive hook on which to hang identity. More on that another time.)

Tesco, sex, and what it really means to live as a Christian

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Go read this (via Tim – also read that – and David, so read that too).

I was recently asked to be more explicit about what Christians can do to go further in their faith; to not just talk about the why and the what, but the how. Yet when I have done this, eg in saying Christians should not shop at Tesco, I meet great resistance. People simply don’t want to be told this. It is seen as a curious quirk of the Rector’s, not realistic, and certainly not much to do with Christianity. Christianity, after all, is about becoming a better person, more spiritually centred – and, in many cases, a rather obsessive and Levitical attitude to sexual practices.

I really don’t think that God cares half as much as we do about human sexuality, most especially now that procreation is separable from it. Of course, there are ways of becoming wicked through the pursuit of disordered sexuality, but such a risk is vastly overestimated. The wickedness that is casually acceptable in Western society through the systematic exploitation of the poor and vulnerable in this country and worldwide is of far more concern to the God of justice and compassion who was incarnated in Christ. How often does Jesus speak about sexuality? As much as a whole column of a standard Bible at most? Yet concern for the poor and criticism of the rich runs throughout his ministry, as it does throughout the Bible as a whole. It is simply not possible to be a faithful Christian and not be concerned about issues of economic justice – indeed, to be much more concerned about such questions than about questions of human sexuality about which so much fuss is presently being made. That is simply one more example of how our church community has been captured by worldly idolatries – the world is presently obsessed with sex, and the church falls in with that emphasis. No wonder the church is seen as being irrelevant and out of touch. If this is all the Christianity in general, and the Church of England in particular, is capable of being, then it deserves a fate on the scrapheap of history.
/rant

I’m so excited!! (Theology and Peak Oil)

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Following a failed attempt of mine three years ago some of the lead figures in on-line Peak Oil research and writing have started up a Yahoo Group to explore Peak Oil from a religious perspective. What bliss!

The home page is here: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/peakoilinterfaith/
To subscribe, send an email to peakoilinterfaith-subscribe@yahoogroups.com.

Theology books (meme)

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From Byron
Rules:
i. List the most helpful book you’ve read in this category;
ii. Describe why you found it helpful; and
iii. Tag five more friends and spread the meme love.

Prefatory note: this is HARD; if you’ve been reading theology for twenty years how do you assess?? But I’ll be disciplined, and just put one book into each.

1. Theology
Theology after Wittgenstein, Fergus Kerr. The key to integrating my philosophical and theological interests into some sort of harmony: “That considering the execution of an innocent man is a more promising starting point for sustaining Christian theology than proving that God exists might be one unsurprising conclusion” [flowing from W’s philosophy].

2. Biblical Theology
The Prophetic Imagination, Walter Brueggemann. Totally shaped how I understand not just the OT but also what I’m supposed to be doing in my ministry.

3. God
The Darkness of God, Denys Turner. Describes the rigorous intellectual context for the mystical tradition and what it means to talk about God.

4. Jesus
Jesus and Judaism, EP Sanders. I’d probably disagree with a lot of this now but it was the backbone of the NT part of my degree.

5. Old Testament
Leviticus as Literature, Mary Douglas. Fascinating and humanising.

6. New Testament
What St Paul Really Said, Tom Wright. Concise, readable, essential.

7. Morals
The Peaceable Kingdom, Stanley Hauerwas. Explains why most “Christian Ethics” is nonsense, and what we should be doing instead.

8. (Church) History
At the Origins of Modern Atheism, William Buckley. The fish rots from the head down.

9. Biography
The Shame and the Sacrifice, Edwin Robertson. The book that introduced me to Bonhoeffer’s life and thought.

10. Evangelism
The Forgotten Ways, Alan Hirsch. Need to re-read this, but it’s an excellent manifesto for authentic church – easy to enter but demanding for disciples.

11. Prayer
The Roots of Christian Mysticism, Olivier Clement. Practical and integrates doctrine and spirituality; also functions as a great introduction to the Church Fathers.

Tags (exceeding my allowance): your meme, should you choose to accept it: Paul, Jon, Justin, Joe, Tim, Tim and Phil.
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