Osama Bin Laden at the communion table…
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Diplomacy by Xbox…
That was what I spat out when one of my fellow retreatants passed on the news of the recent death of some of Gaddafi’s family– his son and three of his young grandsons.
On our return from the island, we learned too about the death of Osama Bin Laden– and the national rejoicing across the USA.
The contrast with the peace and tranquility that we had just experienced was palpable.
As if the final level of the game had now been successfully navigated. Time to put the controller down and go to bed. We can order Call of Duty 14 in the morning and start all over again.
We can take out some more towel heads tomorrow because it is not real- not real flesh and gristle we smeared on a whitewashed wall. Not real just-brushed baby teeth that we smashed in. Not real martyrs that we made.
It was all on a screen.
We have the power, and might is always right.
Here is a little quote from Brian McLaren that says it all-
Joyfully celebrating the killing of a killer who joyfully celebrated killing carries an irony that I hope will not be lost on us. Are we learning anything, or simply spinning harder in the cycle of violence?
Aoradh Wilderness Retreat 2011…
I’ll be off line for a few days…
Over the coming weekend, 11 of us will be heading off to a tiny uninhabited island for this years Aoradh wilderness retreat.
This year we will be here…
There will be 11 of us this year- from London, Lancashire and Argyll, and I am really looking forward to it.
We have prepared some interesting things to do this year- dividing the time up into silent and social time.
See you when we get back!
Bible nasties 5- a little discussion about ‘truth’…
OK, I have been avoiding this a little, but perhaps it is time to dig into a few philosophical ideas about the nature of truth.
It is a long time since I studied philosophy as a student, so this may well be a little low rent- but I hope it’s relevance to our discussion about the nature of the Biblical truth will be obvious.
Correspondance theory
Thirteenth Century philosopher/theologian Thomas Aquinas said this “A judgment is said to be true when it conforms to the external reality”, which is a posh way of saying that if what you say of an object is correct, it is true. Truth is a matter of accurately copying what was much later called “objective reality” and then representing it in thoughts, words and other symbols.
This kind of truth is the common sense kind- the see it, touch it, smell it kind. It is the kind of truth that we assume that the Bible uses.
Coherence theory
Truth is primarily a property of whole systems of propositions, and can be ascribed to individual propositions only according to their coherence with the whole. In other words, truth is only testable when understood within a wider system of ideas and concepts. To understand what is true, we have to approach it from within a set of wider propositions.
Which is exactly what we do with the Bible, even if we do not always acknowledge it. We read the book of Revelation not with the cultural assumptions of a first Century Jewish follower of Jesus, living under oppression and well used to the literary format of apocalyptic writing, but rather from the truth system of a 21st C people, in the shadow of all those end times theories.
Or we read the Gospel of John and the book of Romans, then reinterpret the rest of the Bible from a perspective gained just from an understanding of these two books.
Constructivist theory
Truth is constructed by social processes, is historically and culturally specific, and that it is in part shaped through the power struggles within a community. So the truth we encounter is an amalgam of the culture and context we live and walk in, and is rarely neutral- rather it tends to be shaped by those who have the most power.
So we see the the Bible used to justify war, slavery, racism, oppression of minority groups.
Consensus theory
Truth is what ever is agreed upon by a specific group.
There have always been groups whose readings of the Bible have been idiosyncratic and sometimes downright loony. The Westboro Baptist Church come to mind for example.
Pragmatic theory
Truth is verified and confirmed by the results of putting one’s concepts into practice. So it is only when we test our ideas and concepts in real life situations, or scientific method that we can engage with truth. In this way, truth is self corrective over time.
A recent refinement, known as ‘negative pragmatism’- “We never are definitely right, we can only be sure we are wrong.”
These two ideas of truth as also closely mirrored in theological approaches to the Bible. The 19th C enlightenment sought to prove God, with the Bible as it’s source material. CS Lewis and his huge intellect might be seen as a logical outcome of Pragmatic theory applied to theological truth.
More recently, apologetics have become less fashionable. We have been forced to accept that arriving at a final understanding of truth is always going to be problematic. Alfred North Whitehead, said: “There are no whole truths; all truths are half-truths. It is trying to treat them as whole truths that play the devil”.
Next, a wee trip through some of the philosophical heavyweights to see what they have to say about truth-
Descartes
Truth is available to us as we apply our reason to external objects. But the ultimate arbiter of this external truth is- God. I think, therefore there is God.
Kant
Kant suggested that the problem with correspondence theory is that if an external object is to be ‘true’ then it has to be recognised, and considered internally- at which point it is no longer external, no longer objective. So our encounters with truth are changed by our own interaction with them- by the person that we bring to that truth.
Kierkegaard
For Søren Kierkegaard, objective truth has real limitations, in that it cannot shed any light upon that which is most essential to a person’s life- Objective truths(mathematical, scientific, physical) are concerned with the facts of a person’s being, while subjective truths are concerned with a person’s way of being.
He is also strong on the division between objective and subjective truth- objective truths are final and static, subjective truths are continuing and dynamic. Values, faith and ethics, according to Kierkegaard, can only be understood when filtered through an individuals subjective experience.
Some inconclusive conclusions…
So- where does all this take us to, in relation to the Bible?
For me, the philosophical approaches to truth open up the idea that any ‘facts’, when viewed from a human perspective are likely to be nuanced, complex and to serve hidden human purposes. If we believe that the Bible is a human document- even allowing for heavenly inspiration- then we have to accept that it is laden with these same questions.
There will continue to be those who will assert that the truth of the Bible belongs to God- and as such it is not contingent on our engagement with it, or understanding/belief of it- it just is. The trouble is that people who assert this often appear to be willing to commit themselves to a claim to understand this truth.
As for me, I am left with two useful starting points-
Karen Ward differentiates between ‘small theologies’ (or you could say small truths)- worked out in community, and ‘big theologies’ (big truths)- belonging to academia and the church hierarchy. In this way, I think that an idea of truth can be negotiated with your friends, in humility, and in respect of the tradition. Getting it all 100% ‘right’ is not an option, or even an aspirational goal. Rather we should expect to be teachable and open to transformation by the Spirit within us.
Then there is also that bit in Romans 14 where Paul talks about ‘disputable matters’-
1 Accept the one whose faith is weak, without quarreling over disputable matters. 2One person’s faith allows them to eat anything, but another, whose faith is weak, eats only vegetables. 3 The one who eats everything must not treat with contempt the one who does not, and the one who does not eat everything must not judge the one who does, for God has accepted them. 4 Who are you to judge someone else’s servant? To their own master, servants stand or fall. And they will stand, for the Lord is able to make them stand.
5 One person considers one day more sacred than another; another considers every day alike. Each of them should be fully convinced in their own mind. 6 Whoever regards one day as special does so to the Lord. Whoever eats meat does so to the Lord, for they give thanks to God; and whoever abstains does so to the Lord and gives thanks to God. 7 For none of us lives for ourselves alone, and none of us dies for ourselves alone.8 If we live, we live for the Lord; and if we die, we die for the Lord. So, whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord. 9 For this very reason, Christ died and returned to life so that he might be the Lord of both the dead and the living.
Paul is speaking to a church in the middle of a truth war, and he says, more or less- there are more important things to be getting on with…
Censoring Royal Weddings…
Apparently a planned satirical show in Australia that had been planned to use some footage of tomorrows Royal Wedding has been prevented from doing so by the Royal Family.
Sorry to be a sour pus- but I just do not get it. All this fuss over the weddings of anachronistic archaic figureheads. I remember the last Royal Wedding- I was on a walking holiday in the Lake District. I am off camping on a small island this time! You could say I am indulging in a little personal censorship.
All the Diana stuff- before and after her tragic death- it was always a total tabloid distraction from real issues. She seemed to me to be a rather vacuous person married to a chromosome too far.
As you might guess, I am not a Royalist- I have decided that I am a lazy Republican. I would rather be rid of the lot of them, but at the same time I am not sure what we would do instead. And they are rather decorous… A bit like visiting a Stately home- a crumbling relic of a time when the masses lived and worked at the behest and whim of the few. Perhaps we still do.
Anyway- here is the story.
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In which I adopt for myself, an anthem…
I first came across Over the Rhine a few years ago at Greenbelt festival- I was on my way somewhere and stopped for a few mins to have a listen, and found myself rooted right to the end of the set. I bought a couple of albums, which were OK, but more recently on the back of some rave reviews, I got hold of their new album ‘The Long Surrender’.
It is brilliant- soulful, bluesy, with tinges of Jazz and Country.
And it passed that test of all good music-of-meaning (which is all I am interested in these days)- it made me cry.
There is this one song, for instance, near the end, which I have decided to adopt as an anthem for a while. With apologies to my friends, it speaks of the best of us being broken- and in this broken vulnerability, we find each other and the beauty that life is all about…
There is also a wonderful sax solo that fades into brokenness and is tender and lovely.
Here it is- go buy the album!
The Archbishop and the little girl…
Did anyone see this story over the weekend?
It seems that the father of a little girl called Lulu took objection to the teachers at her Scottish Church primary school ‘doing God’. Curiously Lulu was asked to write a letter to God, entitled “To God; how did you get invented?”
Lulu’s Dad, who is not a believer, cheekily forwarded the letter to the Scottish Episcopal church (no reply- sorry Andrew!) the Church of Scotland (no reply) the Catholic church of Scotland (a nice but complex answer) and finally to Lambeth Palace- and received this reply;
Dear Lulu,
Your dad has sent on your letter and asked if I have any answers. It’s a difficult one! But I think God might reply a bit like this –
‘Dear Lulu – Nobody invented me – but lots of people discovered me and were quite surprised. They discovered me when they looked round at the world and thought it was really beautiful or really mysterious and wondered where it came from. They discovered me when they were very very quiet on their own and felt a sort of peace and love they hadn’t expected.
Then they invented ideas about me – some of them sensible and some of them not very sensible. From time to time I sent them some hints – specially in the life of Jesus – to help them get closer to what I’m really like.
But there was nothing and nobody around before me to invent me. Rather like somebody who writes a story in a book, I started making up the story of the world and eventually invented human beings like you who could ask me awkward questions!’
And then he’d send you lots of love and sign off.
I know he doesn’t usually write letters, so I have to do the best I can on his behalf. Lors of love from me too.
+Archbishop Rowan
Lovely.
Easter- the story in the garden…
I wrote this piece for our Aoradh Easter gathering… He is alive!
It was still dark when Mary left the house.
Not that she had been sleeping. The house was full of fear since Jesus had been taken. Fear of the soldiers coming by torchlight and beating on their doors. Fear that they too would face a long lingering death on a cross.
But there was something worse than fear- worse even than death. When they killed Jesus, everything that Mary had hoped for- everything she had believed in- had fallen apart.
All she had left was a dead body.
To prepare for the grave.
She would have gone sooner- but yesterday had been a religious festival, and the pew police would have been out in force to prevent anything that looked like work. Particularly this kind of work, for this kind of man.
So she carefully closed the door behind her, and gathered her cloak against the morning chill and walked softly through the empty streets towards the edge of town.
As the sky lightened to the east, she came to a small hilly area, full of cool early morning shadows, and grand old trees. It was the garden of a rich man- where he had prepared a tomb for his family.
He had been one of those ‘secret’ supporters of Jesus- Mary felt anger burn in her- another powerful religious type who had a reputation to maintain. Where was he during the terrible mock trial…and the beating…and the humiliation….and the long walk toGolgotha? Still- he had supplied the tomb which was not without risk, and had also paid for some expensive perfume and spices with which to prepare the body. Guilt money she thought, bitterly.
It was already getting lighter as she walked under the trees, the dew on the grass soaking the hem of her skirt. It suddenly occurred to her that the tomb would be closed. The stone would have been rolled across the entrance and her journey would have been in vain. A sudden anxiety quickened her steps.
A rocky outcrop lay ahead, still laced with morning mist. She was almost there.
As she reached the tomb, shafts of low sunlight were beginning to filter through the trees, making it hard to see clearly.
The tomb was open.
Someone had moved the stone.
Mary’s pace slowed almost to a stop. She walked as if through water. And she had forgotten to breathe.
Standing in the entrance to the tomb, her eyes had to adjust to the darkness. She finally took a shaky gasp of air, and steeled herself for the task ahead.
Steeled herself for another glimpse of that broken body.
But the stone cut slab lay empty.
Empty apart from the winding sheets.
At first, she could not take it in. What was this? What did it mean?
Then it hit her like a new bereavement. It was not enough that they should just kill him, they also needed to erase his memory from the people. The last thing they needed was a shrine to give a focal point for more of his kind of revolutionary activity.
They had taken the body.
They had taken her Lord.
……………………………………………………………..
Later, when she told the story (and there were always people who wanted to hear it) she would always struggle to remember what happened next.
She knew that she had started running- retracing her steps through the garden, and back into the town. The streets were coming alive, and she must have looked like a mad woman, running crying over the cobbles and hammering on the door.
She knew too that Simon and John set off to the tomb to see for themselves, because she followed behind.
She remembered walking the garden, hardly able to see the ground in front of her because of her tears.
In the middle of it all, she found herself back at the tomb- but she was no longer alone. Two men, dressed in white stood with her. She was past caring who they were, or where they had come from but remembered the surprise in their voices when they asked her “Woman, why are you crying?”
A strange question to ask anyone in a tomb.
Then she stood in the morning light again, not knowing what to do, where to go, who to speak to. Feeling desperate, alone and hopeless.
Suddenly, came another voice- “Who is it you are looking for?”
She mumbled something about the taking of a body, and taking him for a gardener, began to ask if he knew anything about what had happened, when another word stopped her in mid sentence.
“Mary” he said.
Spoken softly and gently- with a tinge of humour, and a dripping with of love.
It was a word on which her whole life pivoted.
He was alive.
And now, so was she.
Bible nasties 2- the excuses…
Following on from my previous post, I have been thinking about what more recent theologians have made of these darker passages in the Bible- how have they been explained or discounted?
(N.B. Some of the themes echo previous discussions on this blog about suffering- see here for example.)
As far as I can see it, the apologetics have gone along these lines;
Firstly, there are those folk who seem to see God as red in tooth and claw-
God is a wrathful God, whose justice is sometimes swift and unpredictable.
His purposes and his focus are on eternal matters, not temporal ones- therefore any God-action (no matter how brutal) has to be understood in this context. Suffering is temporary- this life, for all of us, is all to short- but eternity is for ever. Therefore, some shock tactics in the cause of higher spiritual causes are a price worth paying.
Some people, regimes and religions are evil, and deserving of wrath. We only escape by the skin of our teeth- because of Jesus.
After all- he made us all. He designed the Universe about us- we belong to him, and he can do whatever he likes with us.
It is easy to dismiss these kind of theological statements out of hand. It is this sort of mindset that allows people to justify all sorts of activities in the name of God- wars, pogroms, ethnic cleansing. Then there are those who suggest that tsunami’s are Gods way of sorting out Islamic nations, or that AIDS is a God-plague on homosexuality.
All of this was smashed forever (or should have been) by the words of Jesus recorded in Matthew chapter 5.
But then perhaps it is still for those of us that pendulum swing too far towards the ‘gentle Jesus meek and mild’ to remember that the Lion of Judah is not a tame lion…
The next set of explanations people reach for are the spiritual/mystical ones-
There can be no good without the presence of evil- in the same way that there can be no light without darkness. How else can we make choices for good?
‘My ways are not your ways’ declares the Lord- how can we ever understand the mind of God?
We must focus on the big picture- the great cosmic clash of Angels and Demons that are at war in these, the last days.
The light and darkness bit makes sense I think- the choices we make are sometimes murky and ambiguous in their morality- but many others are much clearer in terms of what is right, and what is wrong. But many of the passages referred to in my earlier post appear to suggest that God himself is commanding, or assisting, acts that to our modern eyes appear evil. Almost as if God is himself capable of both good and evil?
I have little patience with the end times theorising of the ‘Left Behind‘ sort. But that is a whole different issue…
Next we have the structural/dispensational arguments-
Most of the passages described in in the first ‘Bible nasties’ post are from the Old Testament- at which point God was dealing with his people according to the old covenant– when God worked with and through his Chosen People, the Israelites. This covenant was swept aside by the coming of a new one- brought by Jesus not just for the people of Israel, but for everyone.
Others, following on from John Nelson Darby have gone further, and argued that God has dealt with humanity in different ways over the years, which they divide into dispensations.
What this argument seems to suggest is that God used to be angry, vengeful and violent, but then he cleaned up his act. He used to act out of anger, but now he favours mercy. He used to be jealous, but now he relaxes into love.
Is this the same God? This argument does not hang together for me.
Then there is the liberal/ intellectualist excuse-
God is simply not an interventionist God at all. Sure, he started it all off in Creation, but then pretty much he stepped back and let the whole thing unfold, with a few nudges here and there from the prophets, and finally by sending Jesus as a last gasp hope to sort out his errant creation. The Bible itself is mostly myth and manipulation by previous religious leaders- and it’s application now has to be understood through our own intellect and understanding.
But what sort of faithless faith is this? And what of our experience of a God who is present, and incarnated in us, almost despite what we often are?
Here was see for the first time an attack on our primary theological source material- the Bible itself. Is it ‘true’? What does truth mean when applied to such ancient scriptures? More on this later…
Ponder onwards friends.
Bible nasties…
The Christian tradition that I grew up into stood firmly in the way of the Book.
Our understanding of faith was often reduced to an understanding of the Bible. We prided ourselves on taking it in whole- unaltered, un doubted, seamless, without contraction or error.
Except of course, the longer I have walked this path, the more I have struggled with this blinkered and partisan view of the Bible. It has been a regular theme on thisfragiletent– as I have returned again and again to chew on the words and the Word.
The position I start from these days is one of wonder and respect for the ancient writings, shadowed with other things- I do not doubt the inspiration or the revelation they contain, but what I thought I knew about the Book, I often find myself now not knowing. I find myself full of questions, to which there are often only more questions, rather than answers. For a while this seemed like a crisis of my very faith, but then became the very life of my faith- the adventure with God could begin anew.
One of the things I had to confront was the realisation that all those lovely life affirming and loving passages of the Bible that I know and love are not all that the Book contains. Rather there is much that greatly troubles me. To ignore (or at best to minimise) these passages is simply not honest. To claim that they are part of God’s plan- that all this death and suffering fits together in an organised whole- it lacks integrity with the way of Jesus- or so it seems to me.
To illustrate, here are twenty examples-
- God drowns the whole earth.
In Genesis 7:21–23, God drowns the entire population of the earth: men, women, children,. Only a single family survives. In Matthew 24:37–42, Jesus appears to approve of this genocide and even to say it will be repeated when he returns.- God kills half a million people.
In 2 Chronicles 13:15–18, God helps the men of Judah kill 500,000 of their fellow Israelites.- God slaughters all Egyptian firstborn.
In Exodus 12:29, God kills all Egyptian firstborn children and cattle because their king was stubborn.- God kills 14,000 people for complaining that God keeps killing them.
In Numbers 16:41–49, the Israelites complain that God is killing too many of them. So, God sends a plague that kills 14,000 more of them.- Genocide after genocide after genocide.
In Joshua 6:20–21, God helps the Israelites destroy Jericho, killing “men and women, young and old, cattle, sheep and donkeys.” In Deuteronomy 2:32–35, God has the Israelites kill everyone in Heshbon, including children, and plunder the country. In Deuteronomy 3:3–7, God has the Israelites do the same to the people of Bashan. In Numbers 31:7–18, the Israelites kill all the Midianites except for the virgins, whom they take as spoils of war. In 1 Samuel 15:1–9, God tells the Israelites to kill all the Amalekites—men, women, children, infants, and their cattle—for something the Amalekites’ ancestors had done 400 years ago.- God kills 50,000 people for curiosity.
In 1 Samuel 6:19, God kills 50,000 men for peeking into the ark of the covenant.- 3,000 Israelites killed for inventing a god.
In Exodus 32, Moses has climbed Mount Sinai to get the Ten Commandments. The Israelites are left with too much time to wonder, so they invent a golden calf god. Moses comes back and God commands him: “Each man strap a sword to his side. Go back and forth through the camp from one end to the other, each killing his brother and friend and neighbor.” About 3,000 people died.- Amorites destroyed by sword and God’s rocks.
In Joshua 10:10–11, God helps the Israelites slaughter the Amorites by sword, then finishes them off with rocks from the sky.- God burns two cities to death.
In Genesis 19:24, God kills everyone in Sodom and Gomorrah with fire from the sky. Then God kills Lot’s wife for looking back at her burning home.- God has 42 children mauled by bears.
In 2 Kings 2:23–24, some kids tease the prophet Elisha, and God sends bears to maul them.- A tribe slaughtered and their virgins raped for not showing up at roll call.
In Judges 21:1–23, a tribe of Israelites misses roll call, so the other Israelites kill them all except for the virgins, which they take for themselves. Still not happy, they hide in vineyards and pounce on dancing women from Shiloh to take them for themselves.- 3,000 crushed to death.
In Judges 16:27–30, God gives Samson strength to bring down a building to crush 3,000 members of a rival tribe.- A concubine raped and dismembered.
In Judges 19:22–29, a mob demands to rape a godly master’s guest. The master offers his daughter and a concubine to them instead. They take the concubine and gang-rape her all night. The master finds her on his doorstep in the morning, cuts her into 12 pieces, and send the pieces around the country.- Child sacrifice.
In Judges 11:30–39, Jephthah burns his daughter alive as a sacrificial offering for God’s favor in killing the Ammonites. We remember the mercy God showed to Abraham and Isaac, but forget this one.- God helps Samson kill 30 men because he lost a bet.
In Judges 14:11–19, Samson loses a bet for 30 sets of clothes. The spirit of God comes upon him and he kills 30 men to steal their clothes and pay off the debt.- God demands you kill your wife and children for worshipping other gods.
In Deuteronomy 13:6–10, God commands that you must kill your wife, children, brother, and friend if they worship other gods.- God incinerates 51 men to make a point.
In 2 Kings 1:9–10, Elijah gets God to burn 51 men with fire from heaven to prove he is God.- God kills a man for not impregnating his brother’s wife.
In Genesis 38:9–10, God kills a man for refusing to impregnate his brother’s wife.- God threatens forced cannibalism.
In Leviticus 26:27–29 and Jeremiah 19:9, God threatens to punish the Israelites by making them eat their own children.- The coming slaughter.
According to Revelation 9:7–19, God’s got more evil coming. God will make horse-like locusts with human heads and scorpion tails, who torture people for 5 months. Then some angels will kill a third of the earth’s population. If he came today, that would be 2billion people.
Over the next few weeks, I will spend some time thinking about this a little more- considering again what we might make of these passages.
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Reclaiming the Bible for what it is, not for what it never was.
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Or at least trying to- I stand in a long tradition of others who have done the same.
this fragile tent 