Monthly Archives: October 2015

Protecting the alien and choosing life

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refugeeWhat shall we do about all the refugees? I want to make three points about the present situation, to provide some background context for how a Christian might understand what is happening.

Firstly, there is some clear biblical guidance to draw upon, which is unanimous in saying that we are to be generous and merciful to those who are without a permanent home. In Scripture the refugees are often called the ‘alien’ – in other words, those who are unknown and unfamiliar in a particular context – and so we get texts like these: “You are not to wrong or oppress an alien, because you were aliens in the land of Egypt” (Exodus 22.21); “Cursed be anyone who deprives the alien, the orphan, and the widow of justice” (Deuteronomy 27.19); and “When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap to the very edges of your field, or gather the gleanings of your harvest; you shall leave them for the poor and for the alien: I am the Lord your God” (Leviticus 23.22). Scripture is insistent that the alien is to be treated with justice, that the alien is not to be abused or exploited, but rather to be fed and clothed and treated with compassion. This, then, must guide our immediate response.

So far, so good. What is not so often referenced when discussing the present plight of refugees is all the other law written out in Scripture, which offers something of a balance for that emphasis upon compassion. For alongside the insistence on compassion comes an even stronger insistence upon the necessity not to worship foreign gods, and for those who are alien to come under the same law as the native. So we have texts like this, from Numbers chapter 15: “The community is to have the same rules for you and for the foreigner residing among you; this is a lasting ordinance for the generations to come. You and the foreigner shall be the same before the Lord: The same laws and regulations will apply both to you and to the foreigner residing among you.” This law for the natives is founded in the ten commandments which begins, “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. You shall have no other gods before me.” This stark insistence comes with a promise – from Deuteronomy chapter 30, “See, I set before you today life and prosperity, death and destruction. For I command you today to love the Lord your God, to walk in obedience to him, and to keep his commands, decrees and laws; then you will live and increase, and the Lord your God will bless you in the land you are entering to possess. But if your heart turns away and you are not obedient, and if you are drawn away to bow down to other gods and worship them, I declare to you this day that you will certainly be destroyed.” So the second point that I want to make is that, in Biblical terms, compassion for the refugee is set directly alongside the requirement for the refugees to come under the same spiritual and legal framework as the native.

We need to hold both these things in mind today, and not just with respect to the present surge of refugees fleeing from the Middle East. We need to be very clear about what our own values are. Without that, we cannot ensure that anyone who comes to this country as an alien is treated with compassion and justice but also required to accept those values. Some might find this uncomfortable. Isn’t this a form of imperialism? Who are we to say that our values are better than somebody else’s? I find that when I mention such things in polite society it isn’t received very well. I become marked out as some sort of right-wing proto-fascist. After all, who are we to boast of our society, of our values, of our God? For that is what commitment to one set of values over against another – one God over against another – that is what it means: it is to say, we believe that this is better than that.

Well – who are we not to? Is every culture in the world to be accorded dignity and respect except for our own? I believe it is healthy and good to feel proud of our own values. Moreover I believe that it is impossible to be humanly committed to a particular way of life without it, and that it is a form of self-hatred to try to avoid all forms of national pride and celebration. To see those things in other cultures is wonderful – why can we not enjoy the same sense of wonder and celebration at all that makes our own culture distinctive? To do so, however, would mean recognising and honouring the place of our spiritual and religious beliefs within our national life, and the particular debility which we endure is that our dominant narratives are entirely secular, with no place for such things. Our tragedy is that we have blinded ourselves in the belief that it will enable us to see things more clearly.

Which brings me to my third and concluding point. We cannot avoid sharing in the responsibility for the mess in the Middle East. We are by no means the principal source of the difficulties there – my view is that each country is largely responsible for its own destiny, and the fact that the Middle East is such a blighted region culturally and economically is best explained by reference to indigenous factors, not the impact of outside agents. Yet we have intervened militarily and culturally, and we have done so on the basis of our own blindness. The critique given of Western society by groups like ISIS are not entirely without merit, however barbarous their methods. Until we learn to engage seriously with the underlying theological analysis that they draw upon, and recognise that such analysis is shared very widely throughout the world, we will not be able to begin making amends for what we have done wrong, and enabling a greater peace in the Middle East.

Human beings live within worlds of story and meaning, in the same way that fish swim within water. It is the medium within which we live and move and have our being. When those aspects of our lives are deliberately scorned and belittled, in the name of another story and another God – secular technocratic science in our society – then it is as if we have started to pour toxic waste into our own water supply. We cease to function properly, and we move blindly from one mess to another, each one worse than the last. If we are to navigate through these crises effectively, we need to draw once more from the deep wisdom of our own spiritual tradition. “This day I call the heavens and the earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live.”

The queen of the sciences

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What does it mean to claim, as I do, that theology is the Queen of the Sciences? It is a title that stems from the medieval era, when theology was openly acknowledged as the most important intellectual discipline. Surely, by now, we’ve grown out of such superstitions? Well, that is the default assumption of the modern world, but as devotees of The Silence of the Lambs will know well, if you assume, you make an ass out of u and me. Truly, the last remaining superstition is the one that denies theology her proper place as queen.

There are all sorts of ways to consider our forms and patterns of knowing, and those forms and patterns interlink in particular ways. Most importantly, there are intellectual hierarchies. There are some areas of study which open up other areas, and where a development will cascade down to transform how things are understood. For example, physics and chemistry were once entirely distinct intellectual pursuits; now, however, it is understood that chemistry is effectively an intellectual subset of physics. That is, a full understanding of physics is determinative for how we understand chemistry. This does not mean that the study of chemistry isn’t separate from the study of physics. One can become an expert physicist without at the same time becoming an expert chemist; what it means is that the ultimate explanation for truths in chemistry are dependent upon the ultimate explanation for truths in physics, and not vice versa. There are no truths in chemistry that cannot finally be grounded upon truths in physics.

So to claim that a particular area of study is the Queen of the Sciences is to claim that this particular study is the one that underpins all other areas of knowledge. This is the original claim made for theology, that, properly understood, a right understanding of theology guides and determines the way in which all other subjects are understood. There are no areas of study that are excluded from the Queen, in just the same way that there are no areas of our nation that are not ultimately subject to the sovereignty of Queen Elizabeth II. Indeed, if there were areas outside her purview, that very fact would mean she would cease to be Queen.

It’s worth mentioning at this point that there have been two principal areas of study that have pretended to the throne. The first is mathematics, the second is physics. Whilst there are some academics who still dream of a ‘theory of everything’, which would establish their area of expertise upon the throne, I believe most would recognise this as a clear example of an ambitious reach exceeding intellectual grasp. This is what it means to live in a postmodern intellectual environment, for the ‘modern’ was precisely the notion that science, as best exemplified in mathematical physics, would provide a new and more rational way of understanding, and therefore ordering and controlling, our human world. That dream died at least fifty years ago, although there are still some who cling to somnolent fragments. Must I mention Professor Dawkins again?

So to have a Queen of the Sciences means to have an intellectual hierarchy, within which some subjects are fundamentally shaped and determined by other subjects. This isn’t just a matter of scientific knowledge (to think that it is is to maintain the modern assumption that science is the most important form of knowledge). Consider Jane Austen, and the study of her novels. Knowledge of Jane Austen is a subset of knowledge of nineteenth century English novels, which is itself a subset of English literature – and that in itself is a subset of literature as such. So it is possible to become an expert in Jane Austen, her novels, her writings, her context and so on – and yet still recognise that such expertise (admirable and enjoyable though it may be!) is only a small area of equivalent expertise across a wider field.

Now imagine that there is someone who is a devotee of science fiction novels – who studies Asimov and Clarke and Iain M Banks – and who denies that this has anything to do with the study of literature. Now this might be well-intentioned, and a question of semantics. In the same way that ‘classical’ music has become identified with music of a particular period, even though similar music is still being composed today, it may be that our aficianado of science fiction is simply segregating out one form of literature from another. That is a defensible position. Yet to say that science fiction is not literature, and by that to mean that issues of the use of language, plot structure, characterisation, thematic explorations and so on are not present in these works is not a defensible position. To say that science fiction has nothing to do with the questions of marriage in early 19th Century england, and is therefore not literature, is to restrict the subject matter of ‘literature’ arbitrarily.

Which is how I tend to feel when someone denies that theology is the Queen of the Sciences. In order to fully understand any subject area there must be an understanding of the investigator themselves. There has to be a level of self-awareness, an appreciation of the limits of what can be understood properly, of what might be useful speculation and conjecture and, most especially, of the way in which our desires and ambitions can distort our perception of the truth. In other words, all our forms of knowledge – even the most ‘hard’ of scientific realms – is ultimately dependent on our most fundamental commitments and beliefs. We need to cultivate an awareness of those commitments and beliefs in order to gain a full and proper knowledge of every other subject area, whether in the sciences or the humanities.

This is the realm of theology, and this is why theology is Queen of the Sciences. Theology is precisely how we talk about what we are most committed to, our faiths and beliefs and creeds. It is not essential to be a Christian in order to study theology – that is the same as saying you need to be a student of 19th Century novels in order to study English literature. What is essential is to have the capacity to engage in a discussion about these matters with an awareness of one’s own commitments and assumptions. This is why atheists can study theology without being committed to a particular devotional stance, and why people of all faiths and none can explore the subject.

A few thoughts about Mr Mourinho

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1. He was completely in the wrong about Dr Carneiro. The fact that he blew up so badly at such an early stage was something of an warning sign.

2. I want him to stay. Arrogant it might be, but he is the best manager that Chelsea have ever had (possibly excluding Carlo) and he has earnt the right to work through this.

3. There are parallels with other third seasons – but the difference is that I think he genuinely wants to stay. Give him the chance Roman! Don’t go back to the previous serial changes! Let him build the club and dynasty! He’s only just won the league for you after all…

4. In football terms the problem actually seems straightforward – Matic was off the pace at the beginning of the season, and his preference for sticking Fabregas in that central two is not working. Without the defensive shield the back four are over-exposed, most especially Ivanovic, who really needs to be dropped. That, and Hazard isn’t carrying the team in the way he did last year. For now I’d recommend: Begovic; Rahman, Cahill, Terry, Azpi; Loftus-Cheek, Mikel (with Matic to take that spot back in due course); Hazard, Oscar, Willian; Costa (or Remy!).

5. I hope his visit to his dad helps to calm him down. I wish Roman would ring him up and just say ‘chum, you’ve earnt the right to one bad season, you’ve got time to sort it out’. If not, it looks like he’s about to have a melt down.

Ah well, it’s never boring being a Chelsea fan. We are the champions!