Nice to see that Madonna's got married again : to a hunky guy 28 years her junior, name of Jesus Luz (= 'Jesus Light' . . . or is that 'Jesus Lite'?)
Honestly! It's so obvious : she only wants him for his name.
Friday, 6 March 2009
Friday, 27 February 2009
Frustrated in Babylon
Went to see the Babylon exhibition at the British Museum yesterday. Was hoping to get to the lecture From Jerusalem to Babylon : new thoughts on the Babylonian exile, but despite trying to book 2 weeks before it was sold out, and I couldn't get in.
Good exhibition - the cuneiform tablets are exquisite, and it's quite something to see the 'Cyrus Cylinder' : the imperial edict that ended the Judæans exile in 539BCE. But I'm often frustrated at exhibitions like this because they don't give a real sense of the sociology of the place : what was Babylon's population? How many Jews were living there, and under what conditions? How many exiles from other states were also there? How did Babylonian religion really work? Apparently the British Museum has 130,000 cuneiform tablets : they must know a bit more than what we know from the Old Testament. That's why it was frustrating not getting into the lecture.
I'm trying to get hold of a transcript, or a pointer to further reading. If you're interested, watch this space.
Good exhibition - the cuneiform tablets are exquisite, and it's quite something to see the 'Cyrus Cylinder' : the imperial edict that ended the Judæans exile in 539BCE. But I'm often frustrated at exhibitions like this because they don't give a real sense of the sociology of the place : what was Babylon's population? How many Jews were living there, and under what conditions? How many exiles from other states were also there? How did Babylonian religion really work? Apparently the British Museum has 130,000 cuneiform tablets : they must know a bit more than what we know from the Old Testament. That's why it was frustrating not getting into the lecture.
I'm trying to get hold of a transcript, or a pointer to further reading. If you're interested, watch this space.
Wednesday, 25 February 2009
Lost in the Moral Maze
Last week was the 500th edition of Radio 4's 'The Moral Maze' - a programme which, like 'Thought For The Day', rarely fails to disappoint.
They chose to celebrate by asking the question 'what is the root of morality? Is it ultimately religious?' (well, that's my synopsis of the question they addressed, which was rather more long-winded).
I've posted a synopsis of the whole discussion followed by a critique of it on the Temple Cowley URC website (see 'links', right) together with a sermon based on it.
The discussion was fundamentally confused and inconclusive, partly because (as is usually the case on The Moral Maze) the people don't listen to each other and impose their own prejudices, but mainly because :
: most of the speakers were unable to recognise that the word 'God' refers, almost by definition in the Abrahamic faith traditions, to something that cannot be conceived and held in the human mind. The media bods behind the BBC seem to have this firm conviction that 'God' is some 'entity' that we can imagine in our minds, and of course the atheist participants concur wholeheartedly. For them, God is a human invention or superstition. In fact anything that can be created by the human mind cannot by definition be 'God' and we are condemning ourselves to forever talking at cross purposes.
: most of the speakers didn't seem to be able to distinguish between God and religion. Religion is a human response to the divine. The assumption that this is confined to 'conventional religious institutions' or even conventional religious language introduced a demarcation that made a proper dialogue impossible. Religion includes any behaviour that is a response to 'gods' (or 'idols') too. Thus, behaviour based on giving ultimate value to (say) the 'free market', or 'sex', constitutes religious behaviour - in these cases, idolatrous religious behaviour that inevitably demands sacrificial victims.
Sunday night saw Colin Blakemore, here in Oxford, present the seventh in the TV series Christianity : a History which again, true to form, perpetuated these misunderstandings. That was, until he interviewed the Revd David Paterson - an Anglican priest who's proved popular as a guest preacher at Temple Cowley URC. This is as I remember the conversation (which I recorded, so I could check)
Blakemore : So do you think the universe was created by God?
Paterson : No.
Blakemore : Do you believe in the virgin birth?
Paterson : No.
Blakemore : Do you believe Jesus even existed?
Paterson : Yes, I think he probably did.
Blakemore : So what, for you, is God?
Paterson : God is who I fell in love with and wanted to give my life to.
Blakemore : (lost for words).
Great TV moment! (Even if I might not go all the way with David P).
They chose to celebrate by asking the question 'what is the root of morality? Is it ultimately religious?' (well, that's my synopsis of the question they addressed, which was rather more long-winded).
I've posted a synopsis of the whole discussion followed by a critique of it on the Temple Cowley URC website (see 'links', right) together with a sermon based on it.
The discussion was fundamentally confused and inconclusive, partly because (as is usually the case on The Moral Maze) the people don't listen to each other and impose their own prejudices, but mainly because :
: most of the speakers were unable to recognise that the word 'God' refers, almost by definition in the Abrahamic faith traditions, to something that cannot be conceived and held in the human mind. The media bods behind the BBC seem to have this firm conviction that 'God' is some 'entity' that we can imagine in our minds, and of course the atheist participants concur wholeheartedly. For them, God is a human invention or superstition. In fact anything that can be created by the human mind cannot by definition be 'God' and we are condemning ourselves to forever talking at cross purposes.
: most of the speakers didn't seem to be able to distinguish between God and religion. Religion is a human response to the divine. The assumption that this is confined to 'conventional religious institutions' or even conventional religious language introduced a demarcation that made a proper dialogue impossible. Religion includes any behaviour that is a response to 'gods' (or 'idols') too. Thus, behaviour based on giving ultimate value to (say) the 'free market', or 'sex', constitutes religious behaviour - in these cases, idolatrous religious behaviour that inevitably demands sacrificial victims.
Sunday night saw Colin Blakemore, here in Oxford, present the seventh in the TV series Christianity : a History which again, true to form, perpetuated these misunderstandings. That was, until he interviewed the Revd David Paterson - an Anglican priest who's proved popular as a guest preacher at Temple Cowley URC. This is as I remember the conversation (which I recorded, so I could check)
Blakemore : So do you think the universe was created by God?
Paterson : No.
Blakemore : Do you believe in the virgin birth?
Paterson : No.
Blakemore : Do you believe Jesus even existed?
Paterson : Yes, I think he probably did.
Blakemore : So what, for you, is God?
Paterson : God is who I fell in love with and wanted to give my life to.
Blakemore : (lost for words).
Great TV moment! (Even if I might not go all the way with David P).
Thursday, 12 February 2009
Bus Advert competition
See http://faith-theology.blogspot.com/2009/02/atheist-bus-signs-caption-contest.html for a bus poster caption contest. My favourites :
THERE'S PROBABLY NO GOD. But what would I know? I'm only a bus.
There's probably no driver. Now stop worrying and enjoy the ride.
Mister boojah boojah says: relax - no one is in charge.
You are a figment of God's imagination :How cool is that? Probably.
There's probably no dog. So stop complaining, and enjoy your taco.
THANK GOD FOR ATHEISTS.
Probably? No. There's God. Now stop worrying and enjoy new life.
There is probably no such a thing as a bus.
"The fool has said in his heart, 'there is no bus' . . ."
There is no God. Disagree? Step in front of this bus and prove me wrong.
Why did Jesus cross the road? To get you to the other side.
There's probably no life . . unless you stop worrying . . and enjoy your God.
There's probably no God, but there's definitely an economy. So stop worrying and buy something.
THERE'S PROBABLY NO GOD. But what would I know? I'm only a bus.
There's probably no driver. Now stop worrying and enjoy the ride.
Mister boojah boojah says: relax - no one is in charge.
You are a figment of God's imagination :How cool is that? Probably.
There's probably no dog. So stop complaining, and enjoy your taco.
THANK GOD FOR ATHEISTS.
Probably? No. There's God. Now stop worrying and enjoy new life.
There is probably no such a thing as a bus.
"The fool has said in his heart, 'there is no bus' . . ."
There is no God. Disagree? Step in front of this bus and prove me wrong.
Why did Jesus cross the road? To get you to the other side.
There's probably no life . . unless you stop worrying . . and enjoy your God.
There's probably no God, but there's definitely an economy. So stop worrying and buy something.
Sunday, 25 January 2009
Epiphany : a glimpse of the workings
Sarah suggests a Christmas message should be followed by a thought for Epiphany. Fair cop.
I suppose 'Epiphany' implies 'revelation'. This links with a question posed by Margaret Yee here in Oxford in a series of lectures on Austin Farrer : does theology have anything of value to add to the sum of our (scientific) knowledge? I think many of those who say they 'believe in God' are 'deists' at root : God was around in the beginning, set the created universe going like a gigantic mechanism, and then left us to it, having no more to do with it.
With all the celebration of Darwin that we'll get this year we'll hear plenty of that.
'Epiphany' suggests to me that every little new understanding - even small incremental scientific insights wrung out of vast number-crunching exercises and mind-numbingly tedious data collection (such as Darwin had to engage in before he could see an evolutionary pattern) are, as I found myself proclaiming in an Epiphany address :
"a result of "Aha!" moments — "Eureka!" moments, as God couldn't resist the urge to interfere in our world and give the poor scientist a hint. Rip a little hole in our universe to let the scientist get a deeper glimpse of the workings."
Perhaps 'Epiphany' suggests a subtler and more intuitive understanding of the true process by which truth (including scientific truth) is arrived at. But I don't think that means you can expect to bypass the hard work.
I suppose 'Epiphany' implies 'revelation'. This links with a question posed by Margaret Yee here in Oxford in a series of lectures on Austin Farrer : does theology have anything of value to add to the sum of our (scientific) knowledge? I think many of those who say they 'believe in God' are 'deists' at root : God was around in the beginning, set the created universe going like a gigantic mechanism, and then left us to it, having no more to do with it.
With all the celebration of Darwin that we'll get this year we'll hear plenty of that.
'Epiphany' suggests to me that every little new understanding - even small incremental scientific insights wrung out of vast number-crunching exercises and mind-numbingly tedious data collection (such as Darwin had to engage in before he could see an evolutionary pattern) are, as I found myself proclaiming in an Epiphany address :
"a result of "Aha!" moments — "Eureka!" moments, as God couldn't resist the urge to interfere in our world and give the poor scientist a hint. Rip a little hole in our universe to let the scientist get a deeper glimpse of the workings."
Perhaps 'Epiphany' suggests a subtler and more intuitive understanding of the true process by which truth (including scientific truth) is arrived at. But I don't think that means you can expect to bypass the hard work.
Wednesday, 24 December 2008
A Christmas message
At the heart of the most holy, uncreated God, there is an image of humanness.
"Well", a sceptic might say, "there's no surprise there! When human beings imagine their gods, of course they imagine them in human form." But be careful! Christians, Jews and Muslims know perfectly well that any god that we can imagine — that is, create an image of in our minds — is not, cannot be, the most holy, uncreated God.
For a few 1st century Jews to have come to believe that there is real human-ness at the heart of the divine was a shocking thing, and it is one reason why the first church became separated from its Jewish roots. But those first Christians didn't sort of 'work out' that there is humanness at the heart of God. Nor was it wishful thinking. Their encounter with Jesus led them to believe that God had revealed it to them. And although there is much that is myth-like about the Christmas story, they couldn't have made it up unless their experience of 'divine humanity' in Jesus had led them to it.
We live in an age where people aren't much into gods. We don't think about them, don't believe in them. Spirits maybe, but not gods. So we can turn out easy slogans that 'Jesus is God' lazily without realising what an impossible mystery that is. It's because we're not terribly interested in divinity, actually. But we do live in an age when people in the West are becoming increasingly uncertain about what it means to be human — a full human being. Does it mean having lots of money and sex? Does it mean looking good? Does it mean having hundreds of 'friends' on Facebook? Or does it mean needing nobody, being self-sufficient? Does it mean having the right to take your own life when you think you've had enough? What does it mean to be fully human, exactly?
I don't think many of us really know what being fully human involves. Most of our lives are lived in the shallow end of the swimming pool of life. I think very few people really get into the deep end of what being human is about. It's a bit scary there, when you can't touch the bottom. But it's in the deep end of life that human-ness is found to be divine, 'eternal'. And there, deep human-ness takes the form of timeless, selfless love. If it isn't there deep down (even though it may be hidden) we've lost our humanity.
Most of the time these hidden depths of the real fully-human soul are hidden from us. We're wrapped in the swaddling-bands of our compulsions : our urge to succeed, to be loved, to be forgiven, to be recognised, to be strong, to be someone. There's nothing particularly wrong with all that, although it's when that stuff is all there is that human beings become most horrible. The trouble is that all that neediness hides the deep humanity — the Jesus-like, divine humanity — beneath.
That divine humanity deep down doesn't yearn to be loved : it knows it already is. It doesn't need recognition from other people : it knows its name is already listed among the saints of God. It doesn't need to be strong : its power is in its total, utter humility. It doesn't need to be someone : it knows it is Someone's. And therefore our divine, deep humanity is effortlessly selfless and timeless.
Christmas is called the Feast of the Incarnation. Incarnation means God becoming flesh, the divine becoming human. Christian rulers turned incarnation into a doctrine — a theory, a belief test a Christian had to pass. But it isn't a theory, really. It's a task for us — a challenge. The Christmas challenge is to reach past our need to be recognised, to be forgiven, our need to succeed, to be strong, to be self-sufficient — our need to feel the comforting bottom of the pool of shallow life with our toes, and instead to push further out into life where we no longer need those things, because we are relying solely on the love of God to keep us afloat.
That's the Christmas challenge.
But the Christmas assurance is that deep in our humanity there really is a God of selfless and timeless love, born to set his people free.
"Well", a sceptic might say, "there's no surprise there! When human beings imagine their gods, of course they imagine them in human form." But be careful! Christians, Jews and Muslims know perfectly well that any god that we can imagine — that is, create an image of in our minds — is not, cannot be, the most holy, uncreated God.
For a few 1st century Jews to have come to believe that there is real human-ness at the heart of the divine was a shocking thing, and it is one reason why the first church became separated from its Jewish roots. But those first Christians didn't sort of 'work out' that there is humanness at the heart of God. Nor was it wishful thinking. Their encounter with Jesus led them to believe that God had revealed it to them. And although there is much that is myth-like about the Christmas story, they couldn't have made it up unless their experience of 'divine humanity' in Jesus had led them to it.
We live in an age where people aren't much into gods. We don't think about them, don't believe in them. Spirits maybe, but not gods. So we can turn out easy slogans that 'Jesus is God' lazily without realising what an impossible mystery that is. It's because we're not terribly interested in divinity, actually. But we do live in an age when people in the West are becoming increasingly uncertain about what it means to be human — a full human being. Does it mean having lots of money and sex? Does it mean looking good? Does it mean having hundreds of 'friends' on Facebook? Or does it mean needing nobody, being self-sufficient? Does it mean having the right to take your own life when you think you've had enough? What does it mean to be fully human, exactly?
I don't think many of us really know what being fully human involves. Most of our lives are lived in the shallow end of the swimming pool of life. I think very few people really get into the deep end of what being human is about. It's a bit scary there, when you can't touch the bottom. But it's in the deep end of life that human-ness is found to be divine, 'eternal'. And there, deep human-ness takes the form of timeless, selfless love. If it isn't there deep down (even though it may be hidden) we've lost our humanity.
Most of the time these hidden depths of the real fully-human soul are hidden from us. We're wrapped in the swaddling-bands of our compulsions : our urge to succeed, to be loved, to be forgiven, to be recognised, to be strong, to be someone. There's nothing particularly wrong with all that, although it's when that stuff is all there is that human beings become most horrible. The trouble is that all that neediness hides the deep humanity — the Jesus-like, divine humanity — beneath.
That divine humanity deep down doesn't yearn to be loved : it knows it already is. It doesn't need recognition from other people : it knows its name is already listed among the saints of God. It doesn't need to be strong : its power is in its total, utter humility. It doesn't need to be someone : it knows it is Someone's. And therefore our divine, deep humanity is effortlessly selfless and timeless.
Christmas is called the Feast of the Incarnation. Incarnation means God becoming flesh, the divine becoming human. Christian rulers turned incarnation into a doctrine — a theory, a belief test a Christian had to pass. But it isn't a theory, really. It's a task for us — a challenge. The Christmas challenge is to reach past our need to be recognised, to be forgiven, our need to succeed, to be strong, to be self-sufficient — our need to feel the comforting bottom of the pool of shallow life with our toes, and instead to push further out into life where we no longer need those things, because we are relying solely on the love of God to keep us afloat.
That's the Christmas challenge.
But the Christmas assurance is that deep in our humanity there really is a God of selfless and timeless love, born to set his people free.
Monday, 3 November 2008
Christmas banned in Oxford?
Lot of fuss in Oxford following the Council's 'politically correct' decision to rename the Christmas Celebration in town as a 'Winter Festival' so as not to cause offence to members of other faiths. Whose spokespeople, interestingly, have been the first to complain!
But I cannot help recalling that in the 1650s Parliament (my 'Puritan' faith-ancestors, I suppose) tried to ban Christmas celebrations on the grounds that the worldly excess they involved was inappropriate. No political correctness there! (even though Cromwell's Parliament extended toleration to Jews and Muslims.)
I think a council officer has suggested it's still a Christmas celebration because they're keeping the Christmas tree - which is a legacy of pre-Christian pagan worship completely unconnected with the Christmas story! There's a £10,000 Santa's grotto in nearby Templars Square Centre - an interesting piece of commercial 'installation art' - which has very little to do with any Christian festival, but is much closer to the heart of the actual festival.
Let's face it : what we're supposedly celebrating in the town centre is not the incarnation; it's . . well, a Winter Festival! A Christmas festival close to the Biblical account might focus more on the dreams of the homeless, the persecuted and the refugee for liberation. And there's plenty of those in Oxford. They're the ones most likely to be excluded from the spend-fest.
But I cannot help recalling that in the 1650s Parliament (my 'Puritan' faith-ancestors, I suppose) tried to ban Christmas celebrations on the grounds that the worldly excess they involved was inappropriate. No political correctness there! (even though Cromwell's Parliament extended toleration to Jews and Muslims.)
I think a council officer has suggested it's still a Christmas celebration because they're keeping the Christmas tree - which is a legacy of pre-Christian pagan worship completely unconnected with the Christmas story! There's a £10,000 Santa's grotto in nearby Templars Square Centre - an interesting piece of commercial 'installation art' - which has very little to do with any Christian festival, but is much closer to the heart of the actual festival.
Let's face it : what we're supposedly celebrating in the town centre is not the incarnation; it's . . well, a Winter Festival! A Christmas festival close to the Biblical account might focus more on the dreams of the homeless, the persecuted and the refugee for liberation. And there's plenty of those in Oxford. They're the ones most likely to be excluded from the spend-fest.
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