Monthly Archives: March 2006

A bible meme

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I was pondering those questions which One Salient Oversight was putting to the President, particularly the one about familiarity with the Bible. And a meme occurred to me (this may have been done before but I haven’t seen it).

1. How many bibles are in your home?
2. What rooms are they in?
3. What translations do you have?
4. Do you have a preference?
5. Nominate an interesting verse

So for me:
1. About 20
2. Most in my study, two in the bedroom, two or three in the main living room. Some abridged versions in the kids rooms as well (not included in the 20)
3. NRSV, RSV, NIV, KJV, Douay (on my LifeDrive, along with NIV), Good News. I use Bible Gateway to look at other versions when preparing sermons. I also have various versions of the New Testament in Greek.
4. RSV for accuracy; one of the modern ones for readability (Message or UK English equivalent)
5. “With you is my contention O priest” (Hosea 4.4)

It’s not a meme without tagging, so I tag:

The Ranter
Kyle
One Salient Oversight
and, to compare and contrast 🙂
Ian.

TBTM20060328

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Normal service is resumed! I was up before dawn this morning – a definite sign of coming back to health, although I’m now feeling the effect. Having given up caffeine for Lent, I’m really missing my morning cup of tea.

Mental ferment

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One of the things that happens when you’re lying in bed is that the normal constraints on mental processes get released – and lots of things that have been in the background come forward. One such was a long post that will come – probably after Easter – about ‘the structure of culture’, linking Wittgenstein, Girard and Pirsig. It’ll require a fair bit of work. Another is a thread on ‘am I wrong about Tesco?’ – which I might write in a moment, if my energy is maintained.

However, this is a useful piece, which expresses something accurate. Psybertron is having an interesting conversation on this very subject at the moment.

Back at my desk…

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…but not yet fully back at work. That cold/cough/flu bug thing which I have been fending off all last week descended with a vengeance on Friday morning, and I have spent much of the weekend either asleep or curled up on the sofa under a duvet watching series three of ’24’ (I’ve got about six episodes left!) I suspect I shouldn’t have spent so long in the rain on Friday taking Ollie for the walk. Walking him is one of the things that I have really missed over the last few days – surprising how quickly it has become part of my routine. Poor him – he keeps on coming up to me wagging his tail expecting me to play, and I just don’t have the energy. Still. Should get the collar back on tomorrow – both dog collars, that is.

Meanwhile, here’s a piccie I took earlier, in lieu of TBTM:

Impact of sea level rise

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Got this picture from the Daily Telegraph this morning. Ignore the inset, from what I understand the melting of the East Antarctic ice sheet is radically unlikely. But the main picture is highly plausible, from all the information coming through about Greenland etc. Parts of Mersea will still be OK, but a lot will not.

TBTM 20060324

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This morning was a first – the first time it had rained whilst taking Ollie out in the morning, and it was really raining! So the poor dog had his walk cut a little short, I was already soaked through to the skin on my legs and I didn’t want to set my cold/flu/buggy thing back from its gradual path of recovery.

It was glorious though. It always is.

Ten books that have influenced me

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You can tell it is my day off, and that I have relaxed a bit. I’m catching up on my blogroll, and Revd Dr Leander Harding has listed the ten books that have most influenced him. I thought I’d make a list – with the caveat that it may be revised in time. These are in date order of my reading them.

1. The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever, by Stephen Donaldson. Read this when I was about 14, and have continued to return to it over the years. Some amazing set pieces, and the second sequence in particular has some marvellous theology in it. The way in which ‘poison’ is overcome means quite a lot to me, as does the understanding of the ‘unfettered’. I read quite a lot of fantasy/sf – honourable mentions should also be given to Dune and the Foundation sequence.

2. Relating, by Liz Greene. Actually a work of astrology, from when I was very interested in it, but written from the perspective of Jungian psychotherapy. I think I absorbed a lot of the therapeutic insights from her writing, even if I now see spiritual problems with the astrological side (it is antipathetic to prayer).

3. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, by Robert Pirsig. Huge influence on the way that I think about the world, along with the sequel ‘Lila’. Read this shortly before travelling around the United States for three months in my ‘gap year’, which gave me a lot of time to move my thinking forward. Probably did more than any other single book to undermine my atheism (which is rather ironic, really). Another book I return to on a regular basis.

4. The Road to Serfdom, by Friedrick Hayek. Another book I read either at the end of school or in my gap year, which crystallised a lot of my beliefs about politics. I’ve become more pragmatic over time, but this still expresses my gut instincts.

5. Honest to God, by John Robinson. Read in my first year at Oxford, and probably did as much as anything else to shift my understanding of Christianity away from fundamentalism. I would disagree with much in it now, but it opened a lot of doors for me (in concert with the tuition that I was then receiving!). Should also metnion The Cost of Discipleship, by Dietrich Bonhoeffer which Robinson led me to.

6. Theology after Wittgenstein, by Fergus Kerr. Read this in my last year at University, following a tip from Professor Keith Ward. Opened up philosophy for me again, when I had pretty much given up on it – a seam which I have continued to mine ever since. Should also mention After Virtue, by Alasdair MacIntyre.

7. The Sandman sequence, by Neil Gaiman. Catalysed a lot of thinking about narrative, and the role that narrative plays in the construction of our world. I read this when I was working in London in the mid to late nineties. I still re-read it every so often with great pleasure.

8. Power, Gender and Christian Mysticism, by Grace Jantzen. Read this in the late nineties when I was doing my MA at Heythrop. This stands for all that I learnt there, particularly the way in which Christian Mysticism has been profoundly misinterpreted by post-Enlightenment thinking. Should also mention Denys Turner’s The Darkness of God.

9. Descartes’ Error, by Antonio Damasio. Read this when I began my abortive PhD at Cambridge, which was exploring the Philosophy of Mind, and it opened up a fertile link between reason and emotion. Again, this book has to stand for a particular period of time. Should also mention Martha Nussbaum’s The Fragility of Goodness.

10. Faith Beyond Resentment, James Alison. This has been the biggest influence of the last year or so, introducing me to Rene Girard and mimesis. I find his whole approach tremendously exciting and spiritually liberating, it challenges me to become a better Christian.

~~~

What’s interesting about making a list like this is what gets left out. But this will do for now.

Pretending to be the president

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One Salient Oversight is (hypothetically) questioning President Bush about whether he is an evangelical. I thought I’d answer the questions for myself:

1. Mr President, if you died tonight and stood before God, and he asked you “Why should I let you into heaven”, what would you say to him? An evangelical would focus solely upon the death of Christ and his atonement on the cross for sin. If the president attempts to use his own works or deeds as the basis for entering heaven, then his faith is not in Christ to save, and he is not an evangelical.

Sam would say “You shouldn’t, but I didn’t think ‘should’ was the important thing. Isn’t that Law not Grace?” Beneath the different vocabulary I suspect I’m pretty evo on this one.

2. Mr President, can you please give an example of how God has guided you during your time as president? This is a general question that would reveal how the president thinks God guides. The key is whether or not he mentions the Bible, since the Bible is considered at least a major way that God guides amongst evangelicals.

Sam would say: probably best example is getting the 9:30 service going. Lots of time thinking and praying through that, and it seems to have prospered. Didn’t look at the Bible specifically though.

3. Mr President, do you think that sincere, devout and peaceful Muslims go to heaven when they die? This is a “gotcha” question that will force the president to either deny his faith or to sound arrogant. All evangelicals believe that the Christian faith is an exclusivist faith, which would mean that even devout Muslims are unable to reach heaven. If he thinks that devout Muslims go to heaven, he’s not an evangelical.

Sam would say – it’s not those who call on the name of the Lord who are saved, but those who do the will of his Father in Heaven. It is not for us to restrict the actions of God’s grace. All will be judged by a merciful God, and that is His business.

4. Mr President, do you think that God could forgive someone as evil as Osama Bin Laden? How? This is a question that will further outline the president’s understanding of how God forgives. For the evangelical, no sin is too big for God to not forgive, so long as the sinner puts his faith in Christ. The “how” question would expand this answer. If Bush says he does not know, or focuses on anything apart from Christ, his answer is not one an evangelical would give.

Sam would say: God forgives all those who truly repent.

5. Mr President, which is your favourite book of the Bible? If he reads the bible (as he says he does) then this should be answered easily, along with some explanation of why that book is his favourite. Vague answers or “it’s all good” are not acceptable for an evangelical, who sees the Bible as being very important in his/her life. If Mr Bush can’t give a good answer, the chances are that he doesn’t read the Bible.

Sam would say: I prefer the New Testament to the Old, I prefer the Gospels to the Epistles, I prefer John to the Synoptics, and my favourite bits of John are the prologue, the second half of chapter 6 and the farewell discourse.

6. Mr President, when Jesus was on earth, do you think that he may have occasionally sinned? This is a question that would show up Bush’s understanding of Jesus. If he believes that Jesus is God and is perfect, his answer would be a simple “no – Jesus did not sin”. If he gives an “I don’t know” or a “yes” in response then he has a deficient understanding of who Jesus is and is therefore not an evangelical.

Sam would say: before his baptism, I have no qualms about thinking that Jesus may have “sinned” in terms of doing something seen as wrong by his community (eg his mother) – that would simply be a part of normal human development and maturation. After his baptism he was sinless; furthermore he was ‘made perfect by his suffering’.

7. Mr President, many sincere Christians think that Jesus didn’t actually rise from the grave, what would you say to them? Similar to the last question, this is another “gotcha” that gives him little room to move. Evangelicals believe that Jesus physically rose from the dead and Christians who deny this are in grave error, no matter how sincere they are. If Bush is brave and says this, then chances are that he is an evangelical. If he talks about their sincerity of faith as being more improtant that the fact of the resurrection, then he aint an evangelical.

Sam would say: the resurrection is the horizon of Christian belief. Those who deny it have not entered fully into the truth of the Christian faith.

Probably means I don’t qualify as an evangelical, but I’m closer than I would once have believed possible 🙂

BTW have a look at the picture here. Wonderful stuff, which really speaks to me. Thomas doubts – yet he is also the one who gives voice to the climax of John’s gospel: “My Lord and my God!” Doubt is not the enemy of faith, it is the siamese twin of faith. The opposite of faith is fear, not doubt.

V for Vendetta

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Really enjoyed it, but want to ponder it a little bit more before writing something substantial (which will come, given time…) The graphic novel on which it is based is excellent, and there are some changes, although I’m not sure quite how profound they are. I’m going to go back and re-read.