What's Your Doctrine?

Advent 3

2008-12-14T12:16:00.000+10:00

The previous post was the talk I gave at this Sunday morning 14th December. A bit loose it places but overall I was reasonably pleased with the result, given the time constraints at this time of year.

Advent 3: What Are We Waiting For?

2008-12-14T12:12:00.001+10:00

Today is the third Sunday of Advent. On the Church Liturgical calendar, the Season of Advent began two weeks ago and the last Sunday of Advent is the Sunday before Christmas day. What is Advent about? What is special about this time of year? Why do we do what we do? What does it all mean anyway? Instead of bombarding you with questions, I’ll begin by exploring the background to some Advent traditions.

It is a custom amongst our people to commemorate the season through the use of an Advent wreath, and the lighting of the Advent candles. Have you ever wondered like me if there was any meaning or significance in this arrangement? Well, I’m glad you asked. As the story goes, like many Christian traditions today the Advent Wreath has it origins in the pagan traditions of the tribes of Northern Europe. During the dark months of the northern winter, candles were lit and fires burnt as a way of seeking the return of the sun to the earth. During the Middle Ages, Christians used fire and light to symbolise Christ’s coming into the world. And this practice was systemised by the Germans, resourceful people that they are, into the Advent wreath, to symbolise the wait and hopeful expectation of the glory of Christ’s return.

The advent wreath has three components: The wreath itself, formed as a circle, came to represent the eternal victory over death through Jesus Christ. The use of evergreens to make the wreath were a sign of the faithfulness of God to God’s people. And the lighted candles were a reminder of the light of Christ brought into the world. These are the symbols of Advent, and symbols are most helpful when they point beyond themselves to a larger meaning.

A look at the origin of our English word “Advent” can also help reveal what this time of year is all about. The word “Advent” comes from the Latin word adventus, which means “coming”. This obviously begs the question, who or what is coming? The answer is of course, Jesus. Advent is the period of expectant waiting and preparation for the celebration of the Nativity of Jesus. But wait, there’s more. Advent also points to two additional things beyond a celebration of the nativity of Jesus. The first is as a reminder of the original waiting that was done by the Hebrews for the birth of the Messiah. This waiting was done throughout the history of Ancient Israel. The chosen one would come from the line of David, throw off the yoke of oppression and restore Israel to greatness. As Christians, we are no longer waiting in hesitant expectation for a Messiah to be revealed who will redeem us. We know who he is! His name is Jesus! The very name Jesus means “The Lord is Salvation”, and Jesus has already come to save! At this time of year we remember again the promises of God to the people of Israel, and acknowledge that in the person of Jesus these promises have been fulfilled. This is a cause for celebration. But, like the ancient Israelites, we also look forward.

This is the second sense of Advent. Remember how the English word “Advent” came from the Latin word adventus? Knowing that the Latin term is itself a translation of the Greek word parousia will help us understand the second meaning. So what does this Greek word mean? This word, parousia, is used throughout the New Testament nearly always in reference to the second coming of Christ – in other words, the return of Christ in glory as Judge of the world. When Jesus came to earth 2000 years ago it was as a baby, and his glory was veiled. But on his return he shall judge the living and the dead. If you think about it, this has the potential for radically reframing our perspective on Christmas. It’s not just about a baby in a manger but about a crucified saviour who will one day at the close of the age call everyone to account at the judgement seat.

Jesus as Saviour, Jesus as Judge. These are the twin purposes of Advent. To remind us that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, and that he will come again to judge. We live in the time between the first advent and the second, in the time of grace where Christ has come to save before he returns to judge. What should we do about it?

In the reading from 1 Thessalonians, we hear the apostle Paul reminding his readers, also living like us in what could be called “the time between the times”, about the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. He tells his audience in 1 Thessalonians 5:23-24 about how God will prepare them in anticipation of Christ’s return:

“May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. The one who calls you is faithful and he will do it.”

Paul prays that God, who brings peace in the community now, and promises eternal peace in his kingdom to come, may bring them into union with him by sanctifying them. In other words, making them holy and fit for the presence of God. Also, Paul prays that every aspect of each one of them – their relationship to God (the “spirit”), their personal vitality (or “soul”), and their physical bodies – be found godly, and worthy of the kingdom, when Christ comes again. God, who has called them to the Christian way, is trustworthy to sanctify them and make them worthy of the kingdom.

It is the work of God to make us prepared for the coming of the Son, through the power of the Holy Spirit. But are we to wait passively for Christ’s return? Paul already has the answer for us. He advises the Thessalonians – and us - earlier in verses 19 to 22:

“Do not put out the Spirit's fire; do not treat prophecies with contempt. Test everything. Hold on to the good. Avoid every kind of evil.”

While our preparation for Christ’s return is ultimately the work of God alone, Paul also commands that we actively participate in this process. Do not, he says in v. 19, suppress manifestations of the Holy Spirit as he works through members of the community; do not despise “the words of prophets” (v. 20), in other words, preaching inspired by God, words of consolation and warning spoken by members who receive messages from God, and predictions of future events. He warns that we must be aware that there are true and false prophets; there are those who authentically speak God’s word, but others who do not, who are false, “evil” (v. 22). Paul urges us to discern, in the context of the community, all supposed manifestations of the Spirit when he exhorts us to “test everything”, v. 21.

So where is the Spirit’s fire to be found this Advent? What prophecies are there for us to take note of? What should we be expecting? What are we waiting for?

Turning to Isaiah 61, we see an example of an expectation for a restoration to wholeness that only God can provide. Originally this part of Isaiah was written during and after the Exile in Babylon. At this time, about 700 years before the birth of Christ, the Ancient Israelites had been conquered by their neighbours, the Babylonians, and many were taken prisoner and relocated to Babylon. This part of Isaiah speaks of the hope that God will soon restore Jerusalem to its former glory and make a new home for all peoples. This is a message of rescue for God’s people, in all ways. It is “the year of the Lord’s favour”. This harks back to the idea of the “jubilee”, mentioned in the book of Leviticus (25:10). A jubilee year is a year that is dedicated to God. It is a year of liberty, where all shall return home to their families. Slaves are released from bondage. It is a year of rest in which the land produces without being sown. And this very promise is appropriated by Jesus when he preaches the good news in the synagogue in Nazareth, found in Luke 4:18-19.

The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favour. (NIV)

These are the promises of God, fulfilled in the person of Jesus. Jesus is the one through whom God is restoring all things to himself. Jesus is the one through whom the whole of creation will be renewed, and through whose death and resurrection we have access to God the Father in the power of the Spirit. This is what is meant by the year of the Lord’s favour. It is a time of amnesty, the age of grace, when we are given the opportunity to repent. It’s like our lives, and all humanity’s, have been plunged deep into a spiritual crisis of such magnitude that makes today’s financial crisis pale into insignificance. And God is offering us a bailout package – and his name is Jesus. He is the Saviour.

Jesus’ original audience did not like what they heard. They were too familiar with him, and this familiarity bred contempt. To them he was just Joseph’s son, a local boy who was trying to rise above his station. Their response was rejection.

And what about us? I want to be very careful about what I say next, because I am too an offender in this, but I think there are two ways of responding to this message of amnesty, with Jesus as the Saviour, proclaiming freedom for prisoners, sight for the blind, release for the oppressed. There is a negative way of responding to the coming, and there is a positive way, which I assure you is much better.

Let’s discuss the negative first. I think all of these negative responses muddle the real meaning of Christmas, which is the coming of Christ, with its signs and symbols.

For the negative, we could join with old Scrooge and say, “Humbug” to Christmas cheer and goodwill. We would be like the people of Jesus’ home town who rejected his message. Familiarity has bred contempt, and contempt is a place often visited at this time of year.

I have been reading a little book called “An Aussie Christmas Carol” by ABC icon Kel Richards. It’s a re-telling of the classic Dickens tale in Aussie vernacular. Listen to how an old Aussie Scrooge describes Christmas:

“What is Christmas after all? It’s a time for buying presents you can’t afford to give to people you don’t like, and sending Christmas cards in bad taste to people you almost never see, and running up credit card bill you’ll struggle to repay, and eating too much and drinking too much, and watching the cricket with a hangover on Boxing day. That’s what Christmas is. And then you’ll spend the next month trying to lose all the weight you put on over Christmas, and remembering how the family argued about politics all through Christmas dinner! Don’t you ‘Merry Christmas me!’”

Alternatively, we could be too enthusiastic about the trappings of Christmas, indulging ourselves in ways that not only a Scrooge would find reason to criticise. Does Christmas suddenly reveal the inner shopper? Do we become selfish, acquisitive materialists, endlessly counting the gifts under the tree and lazily leafing through the latest sales catalogue? Are we greedily eyeing off rich foods and drinks? We have forgotten that Jesus is the reason for the season.

The final negative response, is, I think, perhaps the most insidious of all. Could it be that in some ways, the story of Jesus has become all too familiar to us as well? Has this familiarity bred its own kind of contempt? Perhaps not an outright rejection of the man and his message, but more of a kind of lukewarm acceptance. Does a mild boredom linger around the whole affair of Christmas? It’s an easy trap to fall into. There is the crass commercialisation to be endured for another year, Christmas trees to decorate, cards to write, presents to buy, and relatives to be loved in their coming – and in their going. And all of this static tends to blur out the main enterprise.

If our response falls into these negative categories, we are missing the point I’m sure does not need making. That in Christmas, we celebrate the birth of the Messiah, the Saviour of the world, not just in general but in particular. Christ Jesus has come into the world to save sinners – that’s us. We live in the time of grace where we have the opportunity to accept this wonderful news. And we acknowledge that this is the beginning of the end, because we also look forward to Christ’s return.

Now for the positive. Remember how I said that the positive is much better? Well, to find it we are going to have to consult the opinion of an unwed teenage mother. Her name is Mary, and there’s something about her. She has a song, the Magnificat, also found in the Gospel of Luke that is one of the best models we could have for aligning our responses to what God has done for us. A bit of context will help us understand what is going on. Mary is visiting her cousin Elizabeth and Elizabeth’s husband Zechariah. God’s messenger, Gabriel, has told Mary that she will bear Jesus, “Son of God” (verse. 35), successor to David and founder of an eternal kingdom. Now she thanks God.

Speaking today, she might begin: I, from the depth of my heart, declare the Lord’s greatness and rejoice in God my Saviour. Verses 48-50 extol the greatness, holiness and mercy of God, revealed in what he has done through Mary:

“For he has been mindful of the humble state of his servant. From now on all generations will call me blessed,
for the Mighty One has done great things for me - holy is his name.
His mercy extends to those who fear him, from generation to generation.”

Verses 51-53 speak of the great reversals God has, and will, achieve through all ages;

“He has performed mighty deeds with his arm; he has scattered those who are proud in their inmost thoughts.
He has brought down rulers from their thrones but has lifted up the humble.
He has filled the hungry with good things but has sent the rich away empty.”

Do you see it? The proud are scattered. Rulers are brought down, and the humble lifted. The hungry are filled but the rich are empty. This is the radical politics of the kingdom of God. Note also how the one who acts in all of these reversals is God. This is not a manifesto for an armed uprising, but an acknowledgement of God’s authority and sovereignty is all things – the spiritual and the temporal, in matters of church and state, in private and in public. Nothing is too hard for God, or outside of his grasp. The amnesty of God for the humble is the judgement of God on the proud.

Verses 54-55 recall that he has fulfilled, and continues to fulfil, his promises to the patriarchs.

“He has helped his servant Israel, remembering to be merciful
to Abraham and his descendants forever, even as he said to our fathers."

The promises of God have come to fruition in the womb of Mary. It might be framed like that ad for the credit card. Imagine the tagline: Mary’s response to the news of the first Christmas? Priceless. Her attitude is a model for us to emulate.

During Advent, we remember that God came into the world in the person of Jesus, conceived in mystery and born in poverty, living a human life and dying on our behalf, to save us from the penalty of sin and restore us to a right relationship with himself. How do you think we should we respond to the news – the good news - that God has come to save? I have outlined two main responses. The first is to reject Jesus, actively and passively. We can look the other way and go about our business. We can pretend that the coming of Christ is just humbug, or that Christmas is really all about the tree and how many presents are under it for me, or that it is another tiresome addition to an already burdensome year.

Or - and this is where I think we should be - we can be like Mary. We can respond with joy at the hope that Christmas brings for a restored life, a restored community and a restored world shaped in God’s image. Like Paul commands, we have tested, and held onto the good, and avoided every kind of evil. And while doing so, the God of peace is sanctifying us through and through, and is keeping our whole spirit, soul and body blameless, ready for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.

The symbol of Advent – the wreath – helps to remind us of the truths of Christ’s coming:
• The wreath itself, formed as a circle, represents the eternal victory over death through Jesus Christ.
• The use of evergreens to make the wreath is a sign of the faithfulness of God to God’s people.
• And the lighted candles are a reminder of the light of Christ brought into the world.

This Advent, join with me in thankfulness for the first Advent, when Christ came as Saviour, and join with me also as together we wait with hopeful expectation for the second Advent, the glory of Christ’s return.

Prayer:
Lord Jesus Christ, at your first coming you sent your messengers to prepare your way before you; Allow us, your servants, to likewise prepare and make ready your way, by turning the hearts of the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, so that at your second coming to judge the world we may be found an acceptable people in your sight. Lord Jesus Christ, you live and reign with the Father and the Holy Spirit, ever one God, eternally. Amen

References:
Anglican Diocese of Montreal, Canada, 2008. Revised Common Lectionary Commentary: Third Sunday of Advent – December 14, 2008
Available at: http://www.montreal.anglican.org/comments/badv3m.shtml
The Church of England, 1968. The Book of Common Prayer. London: Eyre and Spottiswoode.
Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, 2008. What is an Advent Wreath? Available at: http://www.elca.org/Growing-In-Faith/Worship/Learning-Center/FAQs/Advent-Wreath.aspx
Richards, Kel, 2007. An Aussie Christmas Carol. Sydney: Strand Publishing.
Wikipedia, 2008. Advent. Available at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advent
Wilcock. Michael, 1979. The Message of Luke. Leicester: Inter-Varsity Press.

This just about says it all really

2008-06-18T20:24:00.001+10:00

..and I am in complete ageement with Dr Evans on this, except that I would use even stronger language and go even further:

In view of these findings, it appears that attempts to extract pre-Synoptic and pre-Johannine forms of the tradition from Thomas and the other apocryphal Gospels surveyed above are speculative and precarious. Even more hazardous is the assumption that the existence of pre-Synoptic Gospels has been demonstrated. Extracting primitive, first-century materials or "texts" from second-century Gospels and making generalizations about the origins and theological tendencies of small scraps of papyri make for risky scholarship at best. At worst it constitutes special and an unobjective assessment of the evidence at hand. Aprt from the speculative reconstructions and imaginative contextualizations of Crossan, Koester, and others, there really is no evidence that any one of the apocryphal Gospels existed prior to the NT Gospels or that any one of the extant sources containes significant portions of one that did. Moreover, the evidence of individual sayings that may represent earlier and more primitive forms of tradition than what is found in the NT Gospels is also weak and far from conclusive.

Craig A. Evans. Word Biblical Commentary: Mark 8:27-16:20. Nashville, Tennessee : Thomas Nelson, 2001, xlii - xliii

Why I don’t write (contra Orwell)

2008-05-31T14:04:00.001+10:00

George Orwell once wrote a famous essay entitled “why I write”. In a brief 1000 words or so, Orwell articulates his motivation for putting pen to paper or finger to typewriter, as the case may be) and his aim and visions for writing. It makes salutary reading for those in the writing craft, as not everyone (perhaps hardly anyone) is as dedicated o the craft as Orwell. Why he has been slandered over the years as a hack and writer of low brow, hackneyed political drivel, Orwell’s work-manlike values in producing these tomes remains to be admired. No one can say he was lazy – indeed, Orwell’s literary output was prodigious. What does this have to do with me? Well, I don’t write. Some say I have a slight talent for it, at least d\for marshalling other people’s arguments, but when it comes to putting together anything of my own I consistently come up with nothing. Like the stuff I’m writing right now. It’s really an exercise in inane drivel to avoid working on something more weighty and serious. Previously I put off the terrible occasion of composing serious prose by tidying my desk. But now it gleams with anticipation. Other solutions to avoiding beginning writing include tidying one’s computer folders. They too, await patiently in perfect formation, daring any new material to subvert their well-organised existence. So what to do? Give up? I have been giving up for almost 18 months now. Just do it? Suitable for a shoe slogan but not an essay. Write any old rubbish, close my eyes and hit “send” on the email? Why not? At least it saved a tree. And if it gets printed, it can always be recycled. That’s thoughtful, and caring, at least for the environment, isn’t it?

Episcopal Church Appoints First Openly-Muslim Bishop redux

2007-06-21T13:00:00.000+10:00

Big copy / paste from Mark Steyn...

Sunday, June 17, 2007

Interfaith outreach [Mark Steyn]
It's never wise to satirize the Episcopal Church. Four years ago, after the appointment of the "openly gay" Bishop of New Hampshire, Scrappleface offered the following headline:

Episcopal Church Appoints First Openly-Muslim Bishop

Today The Seattle Times brings us this story:

Shortly after noon on Fridays, the Rev. Ann Holmes Redding ties on a black headscarf, preparing to pray with her Muslim group on First Hill.

On Sunday mornings, Redding puts on the white collar of an Episcopal priest.

She does both, she says, because she's Christian and Muslim.

Redding, who until recently was director of faith formation at St. Mark's Episcopal Cathedral, has been a priest for more than 20 years. Now she's ready to tell people that, for the last 15 months, she's also been a Muslim — drawn to the faith after an introduction to Islamic prayers left her profoundly moved.

Her announcement has provoked surprise and bewilderment in many, raising an obvious question: How can someone be both a Christian and a Muslim..?

She says she felt an inexplicable call to become Muslim, and to surrender to God — the meaning of the word "Islam."

"It wasn't about intellect," she said. "All I know is the calling of my heart to Islam was very much something about my identity and who I am supposed to be.

"I could not not be a Muslim..."
Redding's bishop, the Rt. Rev. Vincent Warner, says he accepts Redding as an Episcopal priest and a Muslim, and that he finds the interfaith possibilities exciting.

With the benefit of hindsight, it should have been obvious that the first female imam would be an Episcopalian...

Is the Pope American?

2007-05-18T09:56:00.000+10:00

This has been totally cribbed from James Taranto's Best of the Web Today, but represents an excellent example of the intersection of church and state in the US (and it is of particular interest to me as backstory while I watch The West Wing on DVD from Season 1 - now up to season 2!).

Is the Pope American?

"A group of 18 Catholic House Democrats publicly disputed Pope Benedict XVI's recent condemnation of politicians who support abortion rights, saying that 'such notions offend the very nature of the American experiment,' " the Religion News Service reports:

On his flight to Brazil last Wednesday (May 9), Benedict said Catholic politicians in Mexico City who recently voted to legalize abortion could consider themselves excommunicated from the church. The Vatican later said the pope was merely restating church policy, which calls for Catholics who participate in abortions to exclude themselves from taking Holy Communion.
On Monday (May 14), Catholic House Democrats said Benedict's comments "do a great disservice to the centuries of good work the church has done." "The fact is that religious sanction in the political arena directly conflicts with our fundamental beliefs about the role and responsibility of democratic representatives in a pluralistic America--it also clashes with freedoms guaranteed in our onstitution," a statement from the 18 lawmakers said.

What a delightful display of arrogance. These congressmen are essentially accusing the pope of being un-American--that is, they are questioning his patriotism. Or they would be, anyway, if the pope were American. In fact, the pope is a leader of a foreign state, and they are demanding, as Americans, that he come to heel. What are they, a bunch of neocons?

Of course, what they are really doing is defying the pope's authority, as leader of the Catholic Church, to make and enforce pronouncements about the obligations of a Catholic. In no way does this offend American pluralism. Pluralism allows for a variety of views on abortion and other subjects, and American politicians are free to follow or reject the teachings of their church, as they see fit.

What these congressmen--among them Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut, Patrick Kennedy of Rhode Island and Joe Baca of California--are saying is that at least when it comes to abortion, they are liberals first and Catholics second. That probably reflects their constituents' priorities, and it's totally kosher from the standpoint of American political values. But it's a bit much for them to demand the pope's blessing

Bible Dudes

2007-04-28T14:08:00.000+10:00

My Desk

2007-04-17T09:57:00.000+10:00

Cartoon by Dave Walker. Find more cartoons you can freely re-use on your blog at We Blog Cartoons.

Anglican Archbishop condemns unification plan

2007-03-04T07:48:00.000+10:00

Update on the unification plan: Obviously it was a media beat up on a slow news day, but the response from Sydney Anglicans have been measured and informative - note the following short interview of Peter Jensen on the 7:30 Report - and the excerpts I have taken deal with the "doctrinal" issues rather than the bureaucratic / institutional ones:

On the Nature of the Church

KERRY O'BRIEN: Archbishop Jensen, can you imagine a day when Anglicans and Roman Catholics are united as one church?

PETER JENSEN, ANGLICAN ARCHBISHOP OF SYDNEY: No, Kerry, not this side of Heaven. In Heaven, we'll all be one church.

....

KERRY O'BRIEN: Why?

PETER JENSEN: Because there's no need for it. The churches are really big institutions, denominations. They have grand histories, that's fine, but they're not the real Church. There's one real Church that all Christians now belong to and although there is some use in, perhaps, denominational mergers from time to time, I don't really see any need for the churches to unite in that way.

(alluding to the Church invisible vs visible, and the conflation of the Roman Church with the former as Augustine's City of God on earth)

....

On Papal Authority

KERRY O'BRIEN: How hard would it be for the Anglican church to accept one central authority, that is, the Pope?

PETER JENSEN: If I said impossible, that's what's on my mind. It is impossible. There may be some Anglicans who would, Anglicanism is a very big body of people, but not the Anglican Church that I know, because we deliberately made the decision, hundreds of years ago, that there was one head of the church, Jesus Christ, and not the Pope and that's why we are not part of the Roman Catholic church

Later...

"...But the sort of rethink which says that somehow the Pope of Rome is going to be in charge of all Christians, never."

(Perhaps Kerry (and Anglicans!) should consult the 39 Articles to see the approach to the authority of the Bishop of Rome)

Later...

"It's not a matter of being biased against Roman Catholics, but it is a matter of deep principle with us. We'd prefer to say, you become Anglicans."

and so on..

On Objective Truth

"Christians are a little bit odd in today's world. We actually believe in objective truth, which makes us awkward. It makes us awkward with each other, too, but I think that's a testimony worth fighting for."

(Something Kerry should be pleased to hear considering as a journalist he should be interested in matters of truth - unless the ABC is going the same way as Channel 7, for example.)

....

On Protestantism and Biblical Authority

PETER JENSEN: We do have one central authority, that's the Bible. What we have is a lot of people who interpret the Bible, which is perfectly right. Each of us is accountable for interpreting the Bible. That's our central authority. Now, that is the way that God rules his Church. That leads to all sorts of differences of opinion. It is called Protestantism, and I'm actually in favour of it. I think it's a good thing in the modern world.

(One the one hand Kerry devil's advocates in favour of a merger, but is trumped by this postmodernist-flavoured appeal to diversity.

On the nature of the Bible

KERRY O'BRIEN: Isn't the Bible itself an imperfect document?

PETER JENSEN: I would say it isn't, but that would be a very interesting discussion that you and I could have.

....

All in all a very adroitly handled and neat little summary of most of the major issues here. Worth watching further.

Cloud Cuckoo land

2007-02-20T12:54:00.000+10:00

Recent article in The Daily Telegraph covering the proposed merger between the Anglicans and Catholics (also covered in detail in The Times).

The Australian Anglican position on this is far from united. Here's what one evangelical Sydney Anglican had to say (quote from the Daily Telegraph):

But the Anglican Bishop of North Sydney, Glenn Davies, a senior assistant bishop to Anglican Archbishop of Sydney Peter Jensen, last night dismissed proponents of the plan as living in "cloud cuckoo land".

"The very thought that we could agree across the world to give up our autonomy is fanciful," he said.

And perhaps no-one in Anglican head office has yet read the September issue of The Briefing - called "No, thanks, I'm Catholic", and includes articles on how to evangelise Catholics and major differences between Anglicanism-as-she-is-spoke in Sydney, and the Church of Rome.

Doctrinal differences between Anglicans and Catholics have attempted to have been smoothed over by the Anglo-Catholics but a few of the more formal differences need a bit more ironing out. And no, the issues aren't women's ordination and gay priests - the evangelical wing of Anglicanism in Sydney at least would on the whole agree with their catholic cousins.

Here's a pundit's list (in no particular order):
1. Submission to the authority of the Bishop of Rome. Athe the report states (quoted in the Times:

"The Roman Catholic Church teaches that the ministry of the Bishop of Rome [the Pope] as universal primate is in accordance with Christ’s will for the Church and an essential element of maintaining it in unity and truth.” Anglicans rejected the Bishop of Rome as universal primate in the 16th century.

2. Different understanding of the Mass / Eucharist / Lord's Supper

" For example, evangelical Anglicans regard a communion service as a memorial of the Last Supper, a symbolic community meal. Catholics believe the mass is a propitiatory sacrifice, where the transubstantiated body and blood of Christ are offered up on the altar in a re-enactment of Calvary. It is hardly possible to overstate the difference between the two approaches or the understandings of the role of the church and the kinds of spirituality to which they give rise."
(From The Australian's take on Kevin Rudd as a Cafeteria Christian)

3. Different approaches to the Bible - the "Wesleyan Quadrilateral" emerges again, and the Catholic magisterium + Scriptures vs the Anglicans "sola Scriptura" (at least in principle, such as Article 6 of the 39 Articles).

...and many more sundry, weighty reasons. Perhaps the elite ecclesiastical types with their refined sense of liturgical order should rather jump ship and join their catholic brethren rather than compromise the last 400 years.

It goes a little bit deeper than "Henry VIII couldn't get a divorce".

Joke:
Q: Why did Henry VIII have so many wives?
A: Because he liked to chop and change!

Just War Essay

2007-01-25T14:58:00.000+10:00

Here is the major essay on Just War theory from the Philosophy course - I will post the exact topic when I find it. But the following "Quote of the day" which appeared at the bottom of the blog seemed appropriate:

Quote of the Day
We are going to have peace even if we have to fight for it.

Just War - Introduction

2007-01-25T14:45:00.000+10:00

The status of noncombatants in terms of their immunity from attack is a central moral question arising out of attempts to limit the conduct of war that is variously addressed by just war theorists, realists and pacifists. In what follows, against the realists, war will be considered an activity subject to moral scrutiny. The principle of noncombatant immunity will be further addressed from the jus in bello perspective of the just war theory, and noncombatant immunity examined as a moral problem, attending particularly to the principles of discrimination and the doctrine of double effect. A recently emerging alternative theme in just war thinking emphasising absolute noncombatant immunity will then be considered. To argue that any civilian deaths, intended or otherwise, is unjust is actually a form of pacifism that renders impossible warfare in the “just” sense. On the whole, however, interpretation of the just war theory consistent with its tradition provides the most coherent, practical and just approach to understanding the place of noncombatants in war.

Concern about civilian casualties is one of the main reasons typically offered for opposition to war in general and specific methods of waging war in particular. In discussing the potential for war in the Middle East, Pope John Paul II reminded hearers of the “consequences for civilian populations both during and after military operations”[1]. More recently, the International Committee of the Red Cross has called for urgent international action on cluster munitions, because their inaccuracy and unreliability produces “indiscriminate” results[2]. Similar ongoing concerns about noncombatant injuries and deaths heavily influence the contemporary discourse of war. Moral categories are employed in an attempt to grapple with the dilemmas of the decision to engage in war and how war is to be conducted. These are frequently founded on the ethical understandings of the status of noncombatants during war guided by just war theory.

[1] The Times. “The Pope: Why I say no to war”, 12 February 2003. Retrieved 12^th November 2006 from http://www.why-war.com/news/2003/02/12/whyisayn.html

[2] International Committee of the Red Cross. The Need For Urgent International Action on Cluster Munitions Retrieved 16^th November 2006 from http://www.icrc.org/web/eng/siteeng0.nsf/htmlall/cluster-munition-statement-061106?opendocument

The Principle of Non-combatant Immunity

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Many of the rules developed by the just war tradition have since been codified into contemporary international laws governing armed conflict, such as The United Nations Charter and the Geneva Conventions. The framework of jus in bello, can be seen, for example, in the UN Protocol for Additional to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949, and relating to the Protection of Victims of International Armed Conflicts (Protocol 1) explicitly attempts to protect the victims of armed conflicts through such law-making approaches. Specifically, Article 51, 2, makes provisions to prohibit indiscriminate attacks, based on the just war principle of discrimination, thus:

The civilian population as such, as well as individual citizens, shall not be the object of attack. Acts or threats of violence the primary purpose of which is to spread terror among the civilian population are prohibited. [1]

The influence of these protocols is evident in statements such as the following from an Amnesty International researcher who led two fact-finding missions to Lebanon to investigate allegations of war crimes in the wake of the recent 34-day conflict between Israeli forces and Hezbolla fighters:

One of the cornerstones of international humanitarian law is the principle of discrimination and proportionality. Not everything is allowed in war. Even if you are attacking a legitimate military target, you cannot do so in circumstances where it is going to cause disproportionate harm to civilians.[2]

The constraint on war imposed by discrimination is widely acknowledged as perhaps the heart of the justified conduct of war[3]. In strict use, the principle of discrimination covers property and objects as well as people, and so subsumes the principle of noncombatant immunity, although in practice the terms are often used interchangeably. Discrimination holds that noncombatants have legal and moral immunity from direct, intentional harm. This is because noncombatants are those who themselves are doing no harm. In the just war literature these are sometime called “innocent”, meaning “currently harmless”, as opposed not to “guilty”, but to “doing harm”[4]. Combatants are thus distinguished from noncombatants on account of their immediate threat or harmfulness. As Shue remarks:

The principle of non-combatant immunity is a reaffirmation of the morally foundational ‘no harm’ principle. One ought generally not to harm other persons. Non-combatant immunity says one ought, most emphatically, not harm others who are themselves not harming anyone. This is as fundamental, and as straightforward, and as nearly non-controversial, as moral principles can get.[5]

According to just war theorists, it does not need to be justified how anyone can be a noncombatant even in the midst of war. We are all essentially noncombatants. What needs explaining is how the advent of war creates the exception to this general rule in the form of a class or role of “combatants” who lose this immunity. Walzer argues that those who bear arms lose their right not to be attacked because they pose a danger to others and prevent them from going about their peaceful purposes. Noncombatants, posing no such threat, retain their right[6]. Soldiers are only entitled to target those who are “engaged in harm”. They are not to attack an entire society. To attack civilians purposefully is to undermine the whole rationale of the ethic, because this is unlimited rather than limited war.

The distinction between combatants and noncombatants thus underlies the unity between the justified resort to war and justified conduct of war. This distinction can be grounded in a Christian charity that requires that a Christian defend his neighbour against unprovoked, unjust attack. Thus, to attack the noncombatant as a way of getting at the combatant is a violation of the very principle it is attempting to uphold[7]. Combatant / noncombatant differences can also be explained and justified as simple protection of potential victims from further unjustified harm, by harming those who are engaged in right-violating harm. This is the place where, as the apocryphal quote attributed to George Orwell attests, “rough men stand ready to do violence on our behalf”. Given the right conditions, it is actually immoral to avoid war, when war could be used to defend the innocent.

However, the place to draw the line between combatants and noncombatants is often not clear-cut[8]. Nagel draws the distinction between those contributing to the support of the survival as a human being of members of an opposition’s armed forces does not qualify them as legitimate military targets – they would be engaged in farming and supplying food, for instance, war nor no war[9]. Other occupations, for example, munitions workers, assimilate noncombatants into the ranks of the military to a greater or lesser degree. The lines between combatant and noncombatant can become increasingly blurred when realist discussions of total war are allowed to enter the picture, or considerations that reckon collective guilt on behalf of the populace of unjust regimes for failing to overthrow their oppressive overlords. Nevertheless, just war considerations are directed towards the principles of the war conventions specifying that once identified, noncombatants cannot be attacked at any time.

[1] United Nations Office of the Commission of Human Rights. 
Protocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949,
and relating to the Protection of Victims of International Armed Conflicts (Protocol 1) 
Retrieved on November 12^th2006 from http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu3/b/93.htm

[2] Rosamond Hutt. “Israel and Hezbolla Accused of War Crimes”, The Human Rights Defender 25 (October/November 2006), 8.

[3] Henry Shue, “War” in Hugh LaFollette (ed) The Oxford Handbook of Practical Ethics. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003), 738.

[4] Thomas Nagel. “War and Massacre” in Mortal Questions. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979), 70.

[5] Shue, War, 742.

[6] Walzer, Just and Unjust Wars, 145.

[7] Paul Ramsey, War and the Christian Conscience: How Shall Modern War Be Conducted Justly? (Durham, MC: Duke University Press, 1961), 34-39.

[8] See Daniel S. Zupan, War, Morality and Autonomy: An Investigation in Just War Theory. (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2004), 81-93 for an extended discussion of this issue.

[9] Nagel, War and Massacre, 69.

The Just War Theory

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The “just war” approach is foremost a tradition of statecraft that attempts to define morally worthy political ends[1]. Its core proposition is that states can resort to armed force and be moral justified in doing so. Just war describes the conditions under which war can be regarded as fully moral and just, “an ethically appropriate use of mass political violence”[2]. This is not an appeal to expediency but to justice. However, the term just war can itself be misleading, as it may imply the moral perfection of one side and guilt of the other. It is more properly understood as justifiable war, that is, the process of moral decision-making applied to war must be ongoing, and is a relative, admitting good and evil on both sides of the conflict[3]. While just war theory attempts to distinguish between justifiable and unjustifiable use of force, “realism” is sceptical about the application of moral terms, such as justice, to the activities of states. States must act in their own vital interests in matters of foreign policy, national security, and economic growth, and appeals to moral ideals are irrelevant. The ‘morality’ of warfare is thus a category error, as it has unrelated to the virtual anarchy of international politics, where actions in the real world often reflect the famous maxim of Thucydides, “the strong do as they can while the weak do as they must”[4]. The argument against the realists in favour of the treatment of war as a moral condition, and that morality holds for state actors as well as individuals, is offered in more detail by Walzer[5].

Given that war is subject to moral scrutiny, the just war approach to this kind of inquiry can broken down into its two constituent elements. The justice of war (jus ad bellum) “requires us to make judgements about aggression and self defence” [6] and may lead to the conclusion that war is sometimes justifiable – a proposition denied by some pacifists who believe that war is a criminal act. The law of war (jus in bello) subjects the conduct of war to moral criticism, necessitates decisions “…about the observation or violation of the customary or positive rules of engagement”[7]:

More fully, the jus ad bellum (right to go to war) criteria are usually listed as: just cause; right intention; legitimate authority; last resort; probability of success; and proportionality between good and bad outcomes[8] [9] [10]. All six criteria must each be fulfilled for a particular declaration of war to be justified. The first three of these six rules are deontological (duty-based or first principle) requirements. For just cause to be established, the duty not to commit aggression must be violated. Further duties must be respected to justify the response of war: appropriate motivation and the public declaration by the properly constituted authority. The next three requirements are consequentialist: having met these “first principle” requirements, the expected consequences of launching a war must also be considered. Thus, just war theory attempts to apply to the issue of war both deontology and consequentialism in a pragmatic way[11]. As Moseley argues, just war theory “bridges theoretical and applied ethics, since it demands an adherence, or at least a consideration of meta-ethical conditions and models, as well as prompting concern for the practicalities of war.”[12] The jus in bello component of the just war tradition is logically independent, although can be said to exist in a dualistic tension[13] as it derives from a similar set of concerns and origins. It likewise has to do with the restraint or limiting of war, but only once it has begun. Two broad principles define jus in bello considerations: discrimination (or noncombatant immunity); and proportionality. The principle of discrimination concerns who can and cannot be legitimately targeted in war, whilst the principle of proportionality concerns how much force is morally appropriate. Both serve to limit destruction to the extent militarily necessary.

[1] George Weigel. Moral Clarity in a Time of War, First Things 128 (January 2003), 2-27. Retrieved 12th November 2006 from http://www.firstthings.com/ftissues/ft0301/articles/weigel.html

[2] Brian Orend, “War” in Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Retrieved 12^th November from 2006 http://setis.library.usyd.edu.au/stanford/entries/war/

[3] James T Johnson. Just War Tradition and the Restraint of War: A Moral and Historical Inquiry. (Princeton University Press: Princeton, 1981), xxxiv.

[4] Thucydides, The Peloponnesian War, LXXXIX Retrieved 12^th November 2006 from http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?lookup=Thuc.+5.89

[5] Michael Walzer,. Just and Unjust Wars: A Moral Argument with Historical Considerations. (New York: Basic Books), 1977.

[6] Walzer, Just and Unjust Wars, 21.

[7] Walzer, Just and Unjust Wars, 21.

[8] Bruce Duncan. “War in Iraq: Is it Just?” Catholic Social Justice Series 47 (2003), 44.

[9] United States Conference of Catholic Bishops: Office of Social Development and World Peace. Letter to President Bush on Iraq. Retrieved on 12^th November 2006 from http://www.usccb.org/sdwp/international/bush902.htm

[10] Richard D Land. Letter to President Bush. Retrieved on November 12^th 2006 from http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Land_letter. Known as the Land Letter and published by US Evangelicals, it shows how these same criteria can be used to come to an entirely opposite conclusion.

[11], Brian Orend, “War” in Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Retrieved on November 12^th2006 from http://setis.library.usyd.edu.au/stanford/entries/war/

[12]Alexander Moseley. Just War Theory [Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy]. Retrieved on November 12^th2006 from.http://www.iep.utm.edu/j/justwar.htm

[13] Walzer, Just and Unjust Wars, 21.

Collatoral damage

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However, the place to draw the line between combatants and noncombatants is often not clear-cut[1]. Nagel draws the distinction between those contributing to the support of the survival as a human being of members of an opposition’s armed forces does not qualify them as legitimate military targets – they would be engaged in farming and supplying food, for instance, war nor no war[2]. Other occupations, for example, munitions workers, assimilate noncombatants into the ranks of the military to a greater or lesser degree. The lines between combatant and noncombatant can become increasingly blurred when realist discussions of total war are allowed to enter the picture, or considerations that reckon collective guilt on behalf of the populace of unjust regimes for failing to overthrow their oppressive overlords. Nevertheless, just war considerations are directed towards the principles of the war conventions specifying that once identified, noncombatants cannot be attacked at any time.

Unfortunately, the nature of warfare means that unavoidable harm will inevitably come to civilians. Despite their in-principle immunity based on discrimination, noncombatants of all sides are frequently the collateral damage of otherwise legitimate military activity. The term collateral damage refers to the “destruction unavoidably incurred in the act of destroying a target deemed to be of military significance”[3]. A “principled” approach emphasising taking precautions to discriminate between combatants and noncombatants appears in commentary on US military strategy during the Iraq War:

Nobody likes war. People get killed no matter how careful you try to avoid hitting civilians…I cannot think of another country that put in so much effort to avoid civilian casualties as the USA has in this war[4].

Despite the precautions, however, civilian casualties were still incurred. Nevertheless, just war theory, providing certain criteria are met, does offers justification to exonerate combatants of guilt for the type of effects of modern warfare described below:

And a new way of war did not necessarily prevent some old mistakes: once again, cluster munitions killed and maimed civilians…[I]n the weeks immediately after the war, it was hard to be sure how many innocent bystanders have died[5].

[1] See Daniel S. Zupan, War, Morality and Autonomy: An Investigation in Just War Theory. (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2004), 81-93 for an extended discussion of this issue.

[2] Nagel, War and Massacre, 69.

[3] James Turner Johnson. Just War Tradition and the Restraint of War: A Moral and Historical Inquiry. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1981), 221

[4] Paul Reynolds, “Vox Populi – Worldwide war-talk on the web” in Sara Beck and Malcolm Dowling (eds.) The Battle for Iraq (Adelaide: ABC Books, 2003), 185

[5] Paul Adams “Shock and Awe – An inevitable victory” in Sara Beck and Malcolm Dowling (eds.) The Battle for Iraq (Adelaide: ABC Books, 2003), 120.

The Doctrine of Double Effect

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Such collateral civilian casualties can be excused while still maintaining it is wrong to take deliberate aim at civilian targets [1]. In just war theory, the doctrine of double effect introduced by Thomas Aquinas offers the justification for just this kind of damage[2]. It is a way of reconciling the absolute prohibition against attacking noncombatants with the legitimate conduct of military activity. The doctrine itself argues that acts have two (“double”) effects, one directly intended and the other foreseen but not intended.. Thus double effect allows for the intentional targeting of legitimate military objectives, and writes off the civilian casualties incurred as foreseeable, yet unintentional or “accidental” effects. It applies in ambiguous situation when noncombatants (or friendlies in cases of fratricide) are mistaken for combatants – what matters is that the intention was a legitimate target in the mind of the actor. The following case from the Iraq War illustrates the consequences of US troops having right intentions yet creating disastrous consequences by failing to accurately distinguishing noncombatants from enemy:

[Civilians] drove about in vehicles easily mistaken for the ‘technicals’ [civilian vehicles co-opted into military role] used by fighters…. The result was a spectacle of dead fathers or slaughtered children in bullet-ridden cars skewed across the roadway; incensed American soldiers, stricken with guilt at what they had done, took refuge in feigned indifference.[1]

Rejecting the doctrine of double effect regards such “collateral” harm to noncombatant as either deliberate or intentional. Moral responsibility for civilian deaths must be accepted apart from some other justifying or excusing circumstances[2].

[1] John Keegan. The Iraq War, (London: Hutchinson, 2004), 200.

[2] David R. Mapel. “Realism, War and Peace” in Terry Nardin (ed.) The Ethics of War and Peace: Religious and Secular Perspectives, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996), 67.

Four Conditions of the Doctrine of Double Effect

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The following outline and discussion of the four conditions needed to satisfy the doctrine comes primarily from Walzer[1]. The first of these considers the act in and of itself, or is at least indifferent, that is, it is a legitimate act of war. This is an important safeguard as it can be used to subsequently test against the assertions made in the second and third factors. These next two are complementary as they concern ends and means – the second factor asks if the direct effect is morally acceptable (for example, the killing of enemy soldiers), while the third requires intention of the actor is good, aiming only at the acceptable effect; the evil is not one of his ends, nor is it a means to his ends. Fourthly, the good effect must be sufficiently good to compensate for allowing the evil effect; it must be justifiable under the proportionality rule.

The third clause carries the weight of the argument. In it, coterminous good and evil effects, are defendable “only insofar as they are the product of a single intention, directed at the first and not the second”[2]. Within the double effect analysis, “right” intention is that which resolves to attack only legitimate targets, following the principle of discrimination. This is the direct effect. All harm to civilians, even though foreseeable, must have been unintended. These are the indirect effects of the action.

A number of issues can be raised concerning the justification of foreseeable breaches of immunity, as well as the balance to strike between military legitimate military activity objectives and civilian casualties. The unintended but foreseeable deaths of military action can be great in number, subject only to the proportionality rule. This is essentially that hostile action against enemy should be controlled and confined to that which is necessary for the achievement of mission objectives. However this is not a strong constraint, as what is proportional or excessive relies on the judgement of the warrior on the spot. Considerations of proportionality easily slide into arguments favouring “military necessity” where “moral judgements wait upon military considerations”[3]. In addition, it is arguable that it is irrelevant whether the civilians are dead as a consequence of the direct or the indirect effect of an action. They are still dead. How can moral blame be denied if military action is initiated in the full knowledge that innocents will be killed?

[1] Walzer, Just and Unjust Wars, 153.

[2] Walzer, Just and Unjust Wars, 153.

[3] Walzer, Just and Unjust Wars, 129.

Against the Realists and Pacifists

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Contemporary interpreters of the just war theory have extended the principle of discrimination as a limitation on military action, to an absolute prohibition on any harm coming to noncombatants whatsoever. For example, Bertram identifies how some have argued that US action in Afghanistan would be illegitimate unless there could be a guarantee there would be no civilian casualties[1]. This view is closer to a form of deontological pacifism that condemns the very activity of war as intrinsically wrong. More particularly, the principal duty of justice violated by war is “not the duty not to kill aggressors, but rather the duty not to kill innocent, non-aggressive human beings”[2]. This approach has further consequences for the overall just war theory. If all killing of civilians is (something close to) murder, any war that leads to the killing of civilians is therefore unjust. Because every war involves civilian deaths, every war is therefore unjust. Pacifism “emerges from the very heart of the theory that is meant to replace it”[3].

Claims that a “presumption against violence” is at the root of the just war tradition cannot be sustained. Weigel argues that the just war tradition is a tradition of statecraft, where the resort to armed force is given moral sanction based on jus ad bellum considerations. To begin instead at a series of means tests that primarily deal with in bello questions of proportionality and discrimination is to begin at the wrong place[4]. The intent of the just war considerations for jus in bello conduct is to place necessary limits (discrimination and proportionality) on war, within the context of a just resort to war (jus ad bellum). Essentially, “a just war is meant to be, and has to be, a war that it is possible to fight”[5].

Further, the jus ad bellum is logically and morally prior to the jus in bello considerations. To place an absolute priority on questions of discrimination in the form of noncombatant immunity breaks the link between just war thinking and statecraft built on the foundations of justice, as Weigel notes. In the discussion of the US decision to respond to the 9/11 strikes by attacking Afghanistan, confusing these differences influenced an outlook that was:

…so single-mindedly focused on noncombatant immunity prior to the war against the Taliban and al-Qaeda that the question of the moral necessity of a vigorous response to the Taliban / al-Qaeda nexus in defence of the United States…seemed to drop out of the picture[6].

The tradition is turned inside out by when precedence is given to questions of discrimination and proportionality over what are the logically prior deliberations of jus ad bellum: just cause, right intention, competent authority, reasonable chance of success, proportionality of ends, and last resort. The moral obligation of government to pursue national security in the face of unjustified aggression is what establishes the foundation from which issues of conduct are sourced.

[1] Christopher Bertram. “Afghanistan: A Just Intervention”. Imprints: Journal of Analytical Socialism 6, No 2 (2002) Accessed 31^st October 2006 from http://eis.bris.ac.uk/~plcdib/imprints/bertram.html

[2] Orend, War.

[3] Michael Walzer. Arguing About War. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004), 13.

[4] Weigel, George. “Moral Clarity in a Time of War”, First Things 128, (January 2003), 2-27. Retrieved on 12^th November 2006 from http://www.firstthings.com/ftissues/ft0301/articles/weigel.html.

[5] Walzer, Arguing About War, 14.

[6] George Weigel, “Just War: An Exchange”First Things 122 (April 2002), 31-36. Retrieved on 31^st October 2006 from http://www.firstthings.com/ftissues/ft0204/articles/justwar.html

Conclusion

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The ongoing critique of war-making is a centrally important democratic activity. Some dismiss the present articulation of just war theory as reducible to “declarations of personal preference” [1] even while speculating about the potential of future philosophy to provide foundations for a more substantive theory of just war. The principles that underlie intuitive conceptions of justice and rights may yield to further theorising, yet there may never be a reliable and practically applicable distinction between combatants and noncombatants. For the realists view of war this discrimination need not necessarily be made. For pacifists, this creates a moral dilemma only resolvable by forbidding civilian casualties outright. Just war theory goes some way towards resolving the problem by imposing moral limits of warfare, attempting to distinguish between justifiable and unjustifiable use military force. The aim is to conceive of how the use of arms might be restrained, made more humane, and ultimately directed towards the aim of establishing lasting peace and justice.[2] This description of what is legitimate and what is illegitimate is what just war has always been about: it makes morally problematic actions and operations possible by constraining their occasions and regulating their conduct[3]. It is a “doctrine of radical responsibility”[4] for it holds political and military leaders responsible for the immunity of noncombatants on the other side.

[1],Noam Chomsky. On Just War Theory and the Invasion of Iraq. Retrieved 12^th November 2006 from http://readingchomsky.blogspot.com/2006/09/on-just-war-theory-and-invasion-of_30.html

[2] Mark Rigstad, JustWarTheory.com. Retrieved 7^thNovember 2006 from http://www.justwartheory.com

[3] Walzer, Just and Unjust Wars, 22.

[4] Walzer, Arguing About War, 14.

Just War Bibliography

2007-01-25T14:17:00.000+10:00

Bibliography

Adams, Paul. “Shock and Awe – An Inevitable Victory”. In The Battle for Iraq. Edited by Sara Beck and Malcolm Dowling, Adelaide: ABC Books, 2003.

Bertram, Christopher. “Afghanistan: A Just Intervention”. Imprints: Journal of Analytical Socialism 6 (2002). Retrieved on 31^st October 2006 from http://eis.bris.ac.uk/~plcdib/imprints/bertram.html

Chomsky, Noam. On Just War Theory and the Invasion of Iraq. Retrieved 12^th November 2006 from http://readingchomsky.blogspot.com/2006/09/on-just-war-theory-and-invasion-of_30.html

Cotteringham, John, ed. Western Philosophy: An Anthology. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1996.

Duncan, Bruce. “War in Iraq: Is it Just?” Catholic Social Justice Series 47 (2003). North Sydney: Australian Catholic Social Justice Council.

Hutt, Rosamond. “Israel and Hezbolla Accused of War Crimes”. The Human Rights Defender 25 (October/November 2006), 8.

International Committee of the Red Cross. The Need For Urgent International Action on Cluster Munitions. Retrieved 16^th November 2006 from http://www.icrc.org/web/eng/siteeng0.nsf/htmlall/cluster-munition-statement-061106?opendocument

Johnson, James T. Just War Tradition and the Restraint of War: A Moral and Historical Inquiry. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1981.

Keegan, John. The Iraq War. London: Hutchinson, 2004.

Land, Richard D. Letter to President Bush. Retrieved on November 12^th 2006 from http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Land_letter

Mapel, David R. “Realism, War and Peace”. In The Ethics of War and Peace: Religious and Secular Perspectives. Edited by Terry Nardin. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996, 54-77.

Moseley, Alexander. Just War Theory [Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy] Retrieved on November 12^th 2006 from http://www.iep.utm.edu/j/justwar.htm

Nagel, Thomas. “War and Massacre”. In Mortal Questions. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979, 53-74.

Nardin, Terry, ed. The Ethics of War and Peace: Religious and Secular Perspectives. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996.

Orend, Brian. “War”. In Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Retrieved on November 12^th2006 from http://setis.library.usyd.edu.au/stanford/entries/war/

Ramsey, Paul. War and the Christian Conscience: How Shall Modern War Be Conducted Justly? Durham, MC: Duke University Press, 1961.

Regan, Richard. Just War: Principles and Cases. Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 1996.

Reynolds, Paul. “Vox Populi – Worldwide war-talk on the web”. In The Battle for Iraq, 185. Edited by Sara Beck and Malcolm Dowling. Adelaide: ABC Books, 2003.

Rigstad, Mark. JustWarTheory.com. Retrieved 7^thNovember 2006 from http://www.justwartheory.com

Shue, Henry. “War”. In The Oxford Handbook of Practical Ethics. Edited by Hugh LaFollette. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003.

The Times. “The Pope: Why I Say No to War”. 12 February 2003. Retrieved 12^th November 2006 from
http://www.why-war.com/news/2003/02/12/whyisayn.html

Thucydides. The Peloponnesian War. Retrieved on November 12^th2006 from http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?lookup=Thuc.+5.89

United Nations Office of the Commission of Human Rights. Protocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949, and relating to the Protection of Victims of International Armed Conflicts (Protocol 1) Retrieved on November 12^th 2006 from http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu3/b/93.htm

United States Conference of Catholic Bishops: Office of Social Development & World Peace. Letter to President Bush on Iraq. Retrieved on November 12^th2006 from http://www.usccb.org/sdwp/international/bush902.htm

Walzer, Michael. Just and Unjust Wars: A Moral Argument with Historical Considerations. New York: Basic Books, 1977.

Walzer, Michael. Arguing About War. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004.

Weigel, George. “Moral Clarity in a Time of War”. First Things 128 (January 2003), 2-27. Retrieved 12^th November 2006 from http://www.firstthings.com/ftissues/ft0301/articles/weigel.html.

Weigel, George. “Just War: An Exchange”. First Things 122 (April 2002), 31-36. Retrieved 31^st October from 2006 from http://www.firstthings.com/ftissues/ft0204/articles/justwar.html

Zupan, Daniel S. War, Morality and Autonomy: An Investigation in Just War Theory. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2004.

Introduction to Philosophy

2007-01-25T14:15:00.000+10:00

Here the two essays done in response to the first task from "Introduction to Philosophy". It required the bringing together of two two authors on a related subject into what was called "critical dialogue", which was meant to be more than a compare and contrast essay, but not quite a response to a set question. The first is on "Free Will, Determinism and Moral Responsibility", while the second is on "The Meaning of Life". Enjoy.

Bibliography

Kupperman, J. J. “Free Will”. In Philosophy: The Fundamental Problems. St Martin’s Press: New York, 1978, 166-179.

Litch, Mary M. “Free Will, Determinism and Moral Responsibility”. In Philosophy Through Film. Routledge: New York, 141-162.

Nagel, T. “The Absurd”. In Mortal Questions. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, 1979, 20-27.

Olen, Jeffrey. “The Meaning of Life”. In Persons And Their World: An Introduction to Philosophy. McGraw-Hill: New York, 1983, 432-441.

Free Will, Determinism and Moral Responsibility

2007-01-25T14:10:00.000+10:00

Critical reflection on: Mary M. Litch, “Free Will, Determinism and Moral Responsibility” and Joel Kupperman, “Free Will”

The two readings being brought together address the relationship among free will, determinism and moral responsibility, and the relative implications for the truthfulness (and falsity) of these claims. They both provide a broad overview of some of the key philosophical arguments in favour and critical of the incompatibilist (hard determinism, libertarianism) and compatibilist (so-called “soft-determinism”) cases. Litch offers a more general treatment of the subject matter; identifying that each of the three views represent intractable problems, are subject to “severe criticism” (p. 151) and have “serious unanswered questions” (160). Kupperman argues that the case for determinism is inconclusive, considering and rejecting compatibilism as an alternative. He mounts an argument against determinist views in the predictive social sciences in particular, and concludes in favour of free will.

Litch and Kupperman each deal with a range of issues in the philosophy of free will, determinism and moral responsibility. Their definitions of determinism generally cohere (Kupperman, 167; Litch 142), and although Litch makes the additional distinction between universal determinism and human determinism, the outcome for humans is the same (144). This is important is the context of Kupperman’s main line of argument against determinism and the predicative power of the social sciences. In particular, Litch devotes a significant section to the discussion of the relationship between hard determinism and moral responsibility (154 – 157), and while the discussion of moral responsibility is more in the margins of Kupperman’s main effort, it is covered in the context of the arguments mobilised in his consideration of determinism (168-171). As such the concentration here will be on how their understandings of determinism influence their treatment of moral responsibility, and the conditions for and responses to morally blame worthy activities.

Both Litch in particular (154) and Kupperman by implication (167) note that society holds people responsible for their actions, usually as a consequence of an exercise of their free will. Litch shows how hard determinism’s denial of free will, if true, makes no allowance for moral responsibility (154). Indeed, the “incompatiblism” of hard determinism has been so strongly defined as to be directly identified as incompatible with “the sort of freedom needed to ground moral responsibility” (154). Litch’s attempt to formularise in detail the argument connecting hard determinism and moral responsibility (154) bears summarising here. To be morally responsible for an action, it must be freely performed. Such “freedom” means it must have been possible for a person to do something other than what they did. But if determinism is true, it is never possible for this to occur and thus it is never possible for a person to be morally responsible.

Kupperman agrees that to claim a person is not exercising free will is to “absolve that person of responsibility” (167), and approaches determinism from the angle of predictability. He offers the case of drug addiction as an example, where the choices taken by user are understood not to be free. Because their drug-taking behaviour is entirely knowable in advance, their choice is illusory. This establishes the case for determinism such that “conduct that seems free is not free if it is entirely predictable” (167). A generalisation of this principle of predictability to all behaviours in the population at large similarly denies that anyone’s choices are free. By extension, it also denies their moral responsibility. Despite this, Kupperman argues there may be no reason to deny responsibility in practice. A difficulty with this is its self-conscious demotion of moral responsibility to a merely descriptive or metaphorical role rather than the key plank on which accountability rests.

Litch (155) applies the implications of determinism for moral responsibility in discussing the conditions and consequences imposed by society in response to breaches of law. Determinism denies free will in the sense of disallowing that a person could do something other than what they actually did. As Litch contends, this also seems to describe the extenuating circumstances often taken into account in practice in both our moral and legal evaluations of whether a person performed an action freely. However, this analogy does not hold, as it reaches for the intuitive libertarian notions that underpin moral responsibility. With varying degrees of freedom, we have varying degrees of moral responsibility. For the true determinist, moral responsibility is not the golden standard to which all are held on account of an assumed free will, outside of individual unusual cases. It is irrelevant.

In this context, approaching Kupperman’s drug addiction case study from a compatibilist perspective (169 – 170) provides a compromise between determinism and moral responsibility. For the compatibilist, determinism is a prerequisite for moral responsibility. Actions must be determined by something – those that aren’t are random, and this is not the same as being free (173). According to this view, a person is free if “what they do is the result of their own unconstrained choice…whether or not their choice is in fact entirely predictable” (168). For the addict, to know that the psychological and physiological factors entirely predict addict’s behaviour is to know they are constrained from exercising free will – what they did was inevitable (169). This will not exonerate the addict of liability (given the crime of drug addiction), only explain the behaviour, because the addict’s choices are not unconstrained. Responsibility is only imputed in circumstances where a person might have, or should have wanted to, act differently. Nevertheless, the fact that the person’s choice was unforced does not change the fact that determinism denies their responsibility.

Although “moral and legal responsibility does not necessarily coincide” (Litch, 155), Litch further explores some of the practical consequences for the judicial system if persons are not held morally accountable for their actions. Is punishment defensible under hard determinism? Not if it is based on retributive notions of justice. Applying Litch’s summary (154), retribution demands that the guilty suffers based on the assumption of the exercise of a substantive free will capable of choosing between alternatives. But if we are not free agents, we cannot deliberate among real choices so as to be responsible for our actions. However, Litch argues other reasons are used by society to justify punishing lawbreakers, such as deterrence, protection and reform (155).

Deterrence remains consistent with a determinist worldview. Knowledge of the negative consequences of lawbreaking occurring (for example, prison) discourages both the lawbreaker and others who may be considering committing similar crimes. Kupperman recognises this when he argues in practice, even if all choices are determined, we “might feel free” (168), to engage in actions that assume people are responsible for their behaviour – blame, persuasion, and appeals to reason. Happily this will not be in vain, as even in a determinist universe these activities will still have “genuine causal impact” (168) – and a genuine deterrent effect. The irony of this move should not be lost: subjective feelings of freedom are being used as a justification to provide the causal foundation of behaviours in a known determinist system.

Punishment with the intent of reform serves to “discourage” the lawbreaker from “engaging in that behaviour again upon release” (Litch 155). The offender is altered for the better by the punishment experience (for example, imprisonment), and does not need to assume the engagement of a free will for its success. As Kupperman argues with reference to deterrence, determinism allows for “genuine causal impact” to effect change. Litch agrees that a process of real and threatened rewards and punishments can alter behaviour (155). That people are “determined” in this scenario does not equate to “set in their ways”, only that antecedent conditions can determine human actions. However, if the extreme naturist version as the source of our determinism is true, humans are incorrigible without some sort of “genetic manipulation or biological intervention” (158). This poses a problem for rehabilitation as a goal for incarceration.

Punishment is still warranted on the basis of the final factor: protection of society from future harm by this individual. Punishment in the form of incarceration restricts the liberty of the person and minimises the opportunity for the offence to reoccur – or perhaps even to occur in the first place. Accepting the availability of sufficient advanced predictive technology, it is possible to imagine science fiction-like scenarios involving the arrest and detention of people in advance of their crimes. In this view, the protection of society would be entirely justified, because such persons would inevitably commit their misdeeds. It is arguable that justice been served in a determinist universe in which a person can do no other that what their antecedents make them.

Hard determinism is an effective explanation for punishment that favours more consequentialist approaches. Giving up libertarian notions of free will that assume moral responsibility only dispenses with retributive notions of justice, as Litch (155) argues. Nevertheless, even if moral responsibility could be excised as merely a legal fiction, its absence does not survive the switch from an external perspective of moral responsibility to an internal one. As Kupperman suggests, “we experience ourselves as making choices, and there is no reason to disregard this experience”(177). He appeals Sartre’s description of our own awareness of the spontaneity of our activities for support - a “phenomenological” or insider experience (177). This freedom lends support to regarding ourselves and others as morally responsible for actions. On the other hand, Litch’s description of determinism seems to say the same thing about our subjective experience, albeit is a tongue-in-cheek manner. As Litch remarks (157), “There is only one course of action truly open to us. Luckily, though, is the course of action we choose.”

The Meaning of Life

2007-01-25T14:07:00.000+10:00

Critical reflection on: Thomas Nagel, “The Absurd” and Jeffrey Olen, “The Meaning of Life”

The two readings being brought into immanent conversation converge in their interest in the absurd and the meaning of life, as their respective titles suggest. They share the view that human existence is essentially absurd and deny that life is ultimately meaningful, while affirming that our response to this alleged profound truth is what really matters, such that life really is what you make of it. On the other hand, they differ in their evaluation of particular approaches our absurd situation. Olen finds religion to be a “satisfactory answer to many of us” (p. 440) while also praising the defiant heroics of Sisyphus, whereas Nagel dismisses religion as merely one competing form of service to higher ends among many (whose ultimate justifications are also in question) and urges us to “approach our absurd lives with irony instead of heroism or despair” (27). Olen and Nagel explore various understandings of the question of meaning and responses to meaninglessness, trying to offer rationally defensible arguments for finding meaning in absurdity, the fundamental fact of human existence (Olen, 434).

As Olen and Nagel describe it, the absurd is essentially a fundamental incongruity “between the universe and our own aspirations” (Olen 434). The world we inhabit does not meet our demand for it to provide us with meaning (Nagel 24). Nagel proceeds further and emphasises the sense of “transcendent awareness” – the ability to perceive ourselves as if from the outside. This “backward step” does not give us a true outside perspective (this is impossible), however, only enough information to see the strange seriousness with which we pursue what can be regarded as essentially mundane and indeed arbitrary and futile activities (22). Nagel finds absurdity in the application of a “transcendent consciousness into the service of an immanent, limited enterprise like a human life” (26). Further, the potential for overwhelming doubt negates the possibility of the demand for meaning ever being satisfied. Where Camus’ definition of absurdity turns on a contrast between “our expectations and the world” (24), for Nagel, absurdity arises from a “collision within ourselves” (24). Philosophical absurdity is a contrast between experience and “a larger context in which no standards can be discovered.” (24). Thus, it is impossible to expect ultimate grounding in the form of a view from nowhere in order to be required to justify meaning.

Both Nagel and Olen address the question of the larger purpose to determine whether this is a sufficient justification for providing meaning. This position assumes that the purpose of our lives are not sufficient in themselves, and the larger purpose to which our lives are necessary to provide us with the elusive sense of purpose. However both Nagel and Olen are quick to point out that such appeals to “higher causes” and “the greater good” also need further justification in favour of their ends as well. Nagel and Olen differ in response to this. Nagel, operating with an a priori assumption that life is meaningless automatically rules this option out (23), whereas Olen is more willing to consider the appeal to God for life’s meaning alongside (like Nagel) the denial that life is ultimately meaningful (437).

Nagel is critical of the appeal to higher purpose, and attacks it on the grounds of scale. Absurdity as taking seriously something that is “small and insignificant and individual” (23), merely begs the question of the significance of the larger enterprise or higher purpose. All are subject to scepticism – the all-seeing eye of certainty. The endlessly recursive chain of justification only finishes when we are “content” to have them end and do not find it “necessary” to look further (23). The search for meaning in a higher purpose becomes emotionally, rather than logically, exhausted. Taking the transcendental step also exposes the self-referential nature of our justifications in our search for ultimate meaning.

Olen’s assessment encourages us to rethink questions about the meaning of life by questioning their legitimacy. Citing the work of J. L. Austin, such questions are classified as those such about things in general. These “pseudo-questions” (436) commit the fallacy of asking about “nothing-in-particular” (436), and thus can have at best only “pseudo-answers” (437). While Olen emphasises the strength of the desire to find answers to such questions, he directs us to pay attention to the particularity of life and doing ordinary things. By doing so, the problem of the larger context is solved by avoidance – bury yourself in the minutiae of everyday life and the big picture questions won’t drive you to therapy or worse.

In order to avoid Austin’s fallacy, the point of something is needs to be placed in its larger context or purpose – one which particular actions serve. The argument runs that unless our actions serve a larger purpose, then neither does our lives, and if this is so, then our lives have no meaning (437). Olen is returning to the theme examined the context of ultimate importance, that is, from a perspective external to us (435). Olen fields the argument that against the background of the universe as a whole, we do not matter, and thus an individual’s contribution to humankind also does not matter. To accept this though is to commit the fallacy of scale deplored by Nagel (21). Olen agrees, but from an emotional angle, wondering about the validity of letting such questions “affect our feelings about life’s worth” (439).

Olen also considers accepting the possibility of a God, who has a larger plan and purpose in which the universe, human history and the individual have their part, and thus is far more sympathetic than Nagel to finding ultimate answers in religion. He quotes Ecclesiastes as providing an authoritive answer in this regard, “Fear God, and keep his commandments; for this is the whole duty of man.” (434). For Olen, this response is reserved for those who can take Kierkegaard’s leap of faith (440). For those who can’t, Olen appeals to our ordinary needs and wants as sufficient to propel is into the future. Olen’s conclusion is self-admittedly “banal” (440) – keep yourself busy with ordinary everyday concerns because the concerns about ultimate meaning are irrelevant. He appeals for meaning to the “purposes of individual actions” (44) – but this only returns us to question the larger context in which they fit. Despite this, things can be referenced to the immediacy of the moment – we sweat the small stuff because they matter to us now.

Olen also asks if questions about the meaning of life really lead us either to commit suicide or to join the church (438). For those happy few, religion settles their disquiet. What of the suicide solution? Both Olen and Nagel consider the response of suicide to the absurdity of our existence. While Camus believed suicide to be “the central philosophical question” (Olen 437), Olen and Nagel’s interpretation of how Camus answers this issue differ. Olen accepts the view of Camus that life is a series of experiences. Although we are unable to evaluate the relative merit of any of these, we should attempt to have as many of these as we can, and live them heroically (438). Olen then gives an overview of the five absurd heroes, outlining in detail the myth of Sisyphus. By realising the futility of their lives, the absurd hero is able to live in “freedom and revolt” (438). Thus the response to absurdity is not suicide but rebellion – in the role of the doomed hero, futile yet valiantly defying the fates.

For Nagel, suicide is also escapist but in a different sense. For suicide to be any kind of feasible “solution” it must be posed in response to an accepted “problem”. But is the absurdity of existence a problem that inevitably compels the suicide solution? (26). If the issue is problematised in this way, and suicide ultimately rejected as escapist, is a self-consciously defiant tragic heroism acceptable as an alternative response? Nagel is not convinced. He calls it not an exercise in (existential) courage but “romantic and self-pitying” (26). According to Nagel, our response to absurdity need not be an agony ending in suicide nor a contemptuous defiance of fate like the absurd hero of Camus (26). This “betrays a failure to appreciate the cosmic unimportance of the situation” (27).

Olen and Nagel broadly agree that universe is meaningless and accept the absurdity this entails for the conduct of our lives. Through rejecting the dilemma of suicide or God, both arrive at a similar conclusion: We make our own meaning. Each tries to offer a rationally defensible argument for finding meaning in a meaningless life. As Nagel observes, “If a sense of the absurd is a way of perceiving our true situation, then what reason can we have to resent or escape it?” (26). However, it does not necessarily follow that if this rationally accepted, it should be emotionally acceptable.

Olen admires the absurd hero as an example of the adage “life is what you make it” (441). He also offers a fascinating yet mysterious Zen-like silence as an alternative. Nagel’s weapon of choice in the face of absurdity is irony. He returns to the transcendent theme, asserting that “If sub specie aeternitatis there is no reason to believe that anything matters, then that does not matter either, and we can approach our absurd lives with irony instead of heroism or despair.” (27). While superficially comforting, if applied to itself irony must be just as good (or bad, as the case may be) as heroism or despair.

Irony has its advantages, if only as a sanity saving device, as Nagel suggests, “if we tried to rely entirely on reason… our lives and beliefs would collapse [into] madness” (25). The self-conscious ironist recognises the absurdity of the situation, yet maintains a commitment to the fiction of meaning. This fiction is recognised as necessary and the absurdity appreciated. Perhaps this is a retreat into quietism, the sublime mystery of silence alluded to by Olen. In the end, we return to our lives, as we must.

e-waste (2)

2007-01-21T08:56:00.000+10:00

Just got a reply from the BCC - not to my liking unfortunately. Must make a complaint mentioning ratepaying customer, environmental respnsibility, tunnel projects etc etc.

Dear Stephen,

Thank you for submitting your request to Brisbane City Council regarding Waste.

At this stage there are no e-waste days scheduled for this Financial year. The allocation of funds for this program will be determined in the 2007/2008 Budget. Unfortunately you will have to dispose of this waste through the Yellow Pages or SIMS.

If you have any further Brisbane City Council enquiries, please access the Contact Information page available from the Home Page at www.brisbane.qld.gov.au or phone our 24 hour Contact Centre on (07) 3403 8888.

Yours faithfully,

Kris
Customer Contact Centre

e-waste

2007-01-16T18:48:00.000+10:00

Yes that's electronic waste and I find myself in the position of having some to dispose and not wanting to landfill it. Here's the letter I wrote to the BCC today (Tuesday). Currently waiting on a reply.

I have a collection (6) of old non-working PC monitors and I would like them disposed of in an environmentally friendly way rather than see them converted into toxic landfill.

When is the next e-waste collection day scheduled so that I may dispose of my hazardous toxic waste safely?

I have contacted SIMS directly and they wish to charge $13 per monitor. With six monitors this makes $78 which is cost-prohibitive for me.

I feel the BCC needs to take the issue of recycling e-waste seriously and provide residents with the opportunity to recycle at the earliest possible convenience.

Thank you for your time

Lu Senituli's Christmas message

2007-01-07T14:42:00.000+10:00

As seen on Christmas day 2006 on the ABC's Spirit of Christmas broadcast.

All 27 seconds of it. Quite good really, considering how tightly scheduled the program was.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HopNcqoGP6w

Forthcoming Posts

2007-01-03T14:13:00.000+10:00

Just recently finished Semester 2 of study and so a number of papers to publish here in the coming days.

Two will be forthcoming from "Introduction to Philosophy":

1. Part A compares and contrasts two approaches to determinism, and Part B compares and contrasts two approaches to the meaning of life

2. An essay on ethics looking at the principle of "discrimination" in Just War Theory, among Realist, and among Pacifists. "Discrimination" is the idea that one should avoid non-combatant (ie civilian) casualties where possible.

and two from "The Mission of the Church"

1. An initial paper / proposal for the Mission project an "ecomission" exploring theological, practical and community approaches to water use in Brisbane, Australia.

2. The major paper explaining the issues from the first in more detail.

I sense a great disturbance in the force....

2006-10-24T11:59:00.000+10:00

Coverage from the SMH - who usually botch up, put on a spin or just get it plain wrong when reporting about matters religious and The Sydney Anglicans in particular. All religions must necessaril;y fit into a certain media pigeon-hole - if not, let's force them to fit. At least the Church crosses the radar in Sydney. Queensland's (or better Brisbane's) Courier-Mail is now the abomination of desolation, tabloid in size, tabloid in nature - no hint of any serious religious news - the only coverage will be if a cross-dressing priest starts performs strange ritual acts in public.

Back to Jensen et al:

"We may be only at the beginning of the disturbances which will lie before us and the effort we will be called upon to make".

Have the Jensen's got media savvy, and are now intoning their words in a flavour the SMH can handle - as inspired by George Lucas?

Hear the words of the prophet Obi-Wan Kenobi "I sense a great disturbance in the force."

or just as inspired:

"I have always said that it is more likely that we will see its devolution into a looser federation of churches, networking across old lines in new ways. Indeed, I think that this has now begun to occur."

Is this the long awaited "Federation" as prophesised by Gene Rodenberry of Star Trek?

Next there will be mention of the quorum of twelve, the home planets and a rag-tag fugitive fleet. Perhaps this has already begun, if "American culture" is code for "Cylon":

"The powerful individualism of American culture, and its triumphalistic belief that it leads the world in civic freedoms, has captured the church. The new faith is a missionary religion."

Star Wars, Star Trek and Galactica - the triumvirate is complete.

SMH, sit up and listen.

Islam and Christianity can't both be right

2006-09-18T13:32:00.000+10:00

A Sydney church leader has used a Good Friday address to tell his congregation that Christianity and Islam cannot both lead to God.

Anglican Dean of Sydney Phillip Jensen told a service at St Andrew's Cathedral that Islam denies some of the Christian beliefs about Jesus.

Islam views Jesus as a prophet but does not believe he was the son of God who died on Good Friday to save humanity from its sins and was resurrected on Easter Sunday.

"Now that Islam has become more common in our society, you need to know the difference between Christianity and Islam," he said.

"For the Koran, and therefore Islam, denies that Christ dies."

But Dean Jensen said that the two religions cannot both be right.

"Either both are wrong or one is right and the other is wrong," hw said.

"But both of them cannot be right."

Bishop of South Sydney Robert Forsyth said the comments were in no way inflammatory towards Muslims, but instead were an attack on the naive who believed all religion was the same.

"What he was attacking was not Muslims," Archbishop Forsyth told AAP.

"The thing he was attacking was the unwise who people think that all religions are part of the same thing - so he was attacking the seculars."

AAP

Steyn on Anglicanism

2006-09-12T15:13:00.000+10:00

Mark Steyn, Canadian and columnist extraordinaire, had this to say about his Anglican heritage in an interview with Jana Wendt recently published in The Bulletin:

“It’s a small matter of regret to me that I can hardly bear to sit in an Anglican church these days, when an Anglican minister speaks. I think there’s very little demand for a faith that has no faith in itself … It’s basically defeatism. They say, there’s no prospect in the modern secular world of us converting people to Jesus Christ, so all we can do instead, is convert them to the mushiest of tired, left-wing politics.”

Sports bar owner rejects Christian group's protest

2006-09-06T13:14:00.000+10:00

...apparently gay bars are OK for the local Anglicans, but table top-dancers aren't. No wonder the community thinks christians are inconsistent.

Sports bar owner rejects Christian group's protest
The part-owner of a Hobart sports bar has responded to criticism from a Christian group protesting against the use of erotic dancers in a building owned by the Anglican Church.
The sports bar is next to St David's Cathedral and the Anglican Church is trying to terminate its lease, on the grounds of immorality.

The Christian Democratic Party handed out leaflets to patrons at the weekend, saying strip shows violate and dehumanise young women and should not be staged on church property.
But the club's leasee, Colin Latham, says the Christian lobby did not protest when the venue operated as a gay bar.

"I have a copy, just happen to have a copy of the lease between Graham Holdings and the church at that time," he said.

"There is no mention of moral covenance, all it says, well, they can do whatever they like, in short, as long as it doesn't upset people on the outside."

Ken Higgs of the Christian Democratic Party says his members will continue to lobby against activity it regards as offensive and degrading, but will not confront patrons.
Mr Latham says the club is run responsibly.

"Ken's entitled to his opinion but we don't openly promote pictures of table-top dancing or any sort of activity, we warn people at the front door, there's a sign that says 'full frontal nudity'," he said.

An application to transfer the club's interim liquor licence is being considered by the Licensing Commissioner.

Talkback: The future of the Uniting Church in Australia

2006-07-20T12:30:00.000+10:00

A cross-post from http://www.abc.net.au/sundaynights/stories/s1686322.htm

Talkback: The future of the Uniting Church in Australia
16/07/2006

Is one of Australia’s largest denominations about to crumble? Last week’s decision of the Assembly of the Uniting Church to allow local bodies to decide on the issue of Homosexual ministry, has brought the Uniting Church to the edge of dissolution. But is it just about bed-room morality, or part of a wider debate, not about religion but politics, the rejection of seventies liberalism and all that has followed.

Tonight, around Australia, thousands of worshipping members of the Uniting Church will have spent at least some part of the day contemplating the fact that their church, created less than thirty years ago in an amalgamation of the Methodist, Congregational and Presbyterian churches, may be on the verge of splintering.

The immediate cause is the same issue that is threatening to tear the much older Anglican church asunder, sexuality, in particular the ordination of practising homosexual clergy. It’s a many layered debate, about the nature of revealed truth, about democracy versus authority, about the nature of the church - as local congregations or the universal body of Christ.

All of which seem somewhat arcane and theological. There is another sense however in which this is a battle reflective of what’s charicatured as the culture wars. Liberals and relativists, versus religious social conservatives.

Guests in this story:
Max Champion Representative of the soon to be "Assembly of Confessing congregations"
Terence Corkin General Secretary of the Assmbly of the Uniting Church of Australia

Comments on 18 Ways to Use Media in Worship

2006-06-28T15:07:00.000+10:00

Has anyone ever considered that this use of media is a total distraction from the gospel, the great news of Christ crucufied and risen, and what it means for us all?
The "techniques" are so caught up in their own cleverness they better merit description as audience manipulation techniques par excellence rather than activities that should garce the congregation of the faithful. Televison itself as a medium in the 21st century is the kwy tool of this constructionof reality - and we are captive to it rather than its master. Such methods rely on contrived visual and auditory sensory experiences for the amusement of the audience and the construction of an artifice of spirituality that is closer to trickery and self-deception than the living God. Are the scriptures read? Is the gospel truly preached? Is God truly worshipped? What is church for anyway? Answers to such foundational questions will expose one's commitment to the values of the gospel - or to the values of the world.

Stay Tuned, as 2 Churches Struggle With Gay Clergy

2006-06-28T14:27:00.000+10:00

From the New York Times

The only certain result of the Episcopal and Presbyterian church
conventions that ended this week is that the participants will return to fight
another day — and at future church conventions — over homosexuality.

For the Episcopal
Church U.S.A. and the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), as with other mainline
Protestant churches, the summertime convention season has become a painful
ritual. In each church, the conservatives and the liberals are bound together
like brawling conjoined twins.

The liberals dominate the power centers of the denominations — the national offices and the legislative arms. The conservatives have threatened to walk away, but most have not because they say the church is rightfully, theologically, theirs.

Sounds like another denomination we know- the Aus UCA.

Sad Irony

2006-06-28T14:17:00.000+10:00

Repost from http://www.matthiasmedia.com.au.

Just wondering if the UCA is Aus will take the same line on the vexed issue of Resolution 84 at the forthcoming 11th Assembly...

Sad Irony

27 June 2006 AD

This past Tuesday, delegates to the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA) cast votes on two important issues. By an overwhelming majoring (81% to 19%), the delegates voted to keep in the PCUSA constitution amendment G-6.0106b:

“Those who are called to office in the church are to lead a life in obedience to Scripture and in conformity to the historic confessional standards of the church. Among these standards is the requirement to live either in fidelity within the covenant of marriage between a man and a woman, or chastity in singleness. Persons refusing to repent of any self-acknowledged practice which the confessions call sin shall not be ordained and/or installed as deacons, elders, or ministers of the Word and Sacrament.”

Liberals proposed an overture to remove this section so as to allow homosexuals and lesbians in committed relationships to be legally ordained in the PCUSA. Their attempt failed. So, this is good news, right?

Seemingly so … until you read about the vote taken right before this one. In a historic vote, the delegation voted by a margin of 57% to 43% to accept what is known as local option. This means that a local church and presbytery (geographical association of Presbyterian churches) has the right to deem which ordination standards are essentials and which ones are not. The end result is that a presbytery can deem the above amendment as a “non-essential” ordination standard and thus allow homosexuals and lesbians (or anyone refusing to repent of a certain sin) to be an official Minister of Word and Sacrament.

It takes little commentary to see the hypocrisy in all of this.

Introduction

2006-06-21T17:28:00.000+10:00

The following posts formed the parts of an essay written for the Introducing Theology subject at the Brisbane College of Theology.

"To experience the fellowship of the Spirit inevitably carries Christianity beyond itself into the greater fellowship of all God’s creatures" (Moltmann). Discuss and critique.

The fellowship of the Spirit derives from and rests in a Trinitarian understanding of the relationship between God, humanity and creation. The fellowship of the Spirit is the experience of koinonia of relationship within the Trinitarian nature of God, in which believers are drawn into the perichoretic life of God, and participate in the mutual indwelling of the divine persons. It is the experience of the koinonia of relationship among the redeemed members of the true church, enabled and empowered by the working of the same Spirit. But is there a koinonia of the Spirit with all non-human living creatures such as animals and plants, and by extension, the whole of creation?

From Eternity

2006-06-21T17:27:00.000+10:00

In the beginning, God. These words from Genesis 1:1 instruct us on the eternal transcendent nature of God. From all eternity, the three persons of the Trinity enjoy relating to one another in the manner of perichoresis – a mutual indwelling or interpenetration, forming an eternal “community of being” [1] in loving relationship. In this relationship “all three persons of the Trinity mutually share in the life of the others, so that none is isolated or detached from the actions of the others”[2]. Zizioulas teaches about communion from the Trinity, saying, “God is not first One and the Three, but simultaneously One and Three”. Therefore, God is an “unbreakable koinonia (community) that exists between the three Persons.”[3]

The social Trinity is a perichoretic community of love, eternally sufficient, existing prior to the creation. The act of creation is not necessary in order to fulfil a need for, or a lack of, fellowship within God’s essential relational nature. The idea of love overflow from within the Trinity necessitating creation as an object of love is to be discounted. This may lead to an “emanation” model of creation which fails to identify the essential discontinuity between the creation and the creator. God creates out of love for, but not from absence of, fellowship. As Tracey notes, the nature of God can be essentially relational without being necessarily related to creatures – “God’s life is complete apart from his relation to his creatures, since the relatedness that is an essential property of God might not be his relatedness to creatures.”[4] This empowers the understanding of the freedom of the fellowship of the Spirit, and how the Christian experience is absolutely dependent on, and subsequent to, the eternal relationality of God.

[1] Alister E. McGrath, Christian Theology: An Introduction (Victoria: Blackwell, 2001), 325-6.
[2] McGrath, Christian Theology, 586.
[3] John Zizioulas, Communion and Otherness, http://www.orthodoxresearchinstitute.org/articles/liturgics/john_zizioulas_communion_otherness.htm. Accessed 13 June 2006.

[4] David Tracey, God Action and Embodiment. (Grand Rapids: Eardmans: 1984), 178.

Creation

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Creation itself is a Trinitarian activity: by the Father through the Son in the Holy Spirit. Regarding creation, the Nicene-Constantinopolitan Creed tightly summarises the Christian belief in “one God, the Father, the almighty, the maker of all things seen and unseen…one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God…through whom all things in heaven and on earth came into being…the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life.” [1]

McGrath identifies four implications for the doctrine of creation[2] which will serve as useful guidelines to explore the fellowship of the Spirit in God, humanity and creation.
Firstly, a distinction must be drawn between God and the creation. Rahner’s discussion of the “economic trinity” and the “essential trinity” provide a useful way of distinguishing between the transcendence and the immanence of God[3]. God is both distinct from the world, and is simultaneously related to the world, “as its creator, sustainer, and ultimately its redeemer”[4]. God alone is the absolute source of all that is, but God is separate from it - creation is not regarded as divine, nor possessed of any divine qualities. God’s Spirit acts upon the world without becoming merged with it. However, the immanence of the Spirit of God in creation is a key entry point into understanding the idea of the fellowship of the Spirit experienced within creation. Moltmann argues that:

…without a pneumatological doctrine of creation there cannot be a Christian doctrine of creation at all…without a perception of the creator Spirit in the world there cannot be a peaceful community of creation in which human beings and nature share.[5]

A relational indwelling of divine perichoresis provides the model for properly understanding the relation between God and creation[6]. God is present in creation – but in what sense? We must distinguish between the Spirit’s cosmic, reconciling and redeeming indwelling. Otherwise there will be no necessary discontinuity between the creator and the creation, or clearly identifiable interface where continuity does occur, that is, supremely in the person of Christ. Creation must always be understood in light of God’s self-revelation in Christ, and the Holy Spirit understood concretely in terms of Christ as the unique bearer and embodiment of the Spirit. Hence, the immanence of God in creation is the presence of the Spirit as mediated by Christ.

Secondly, Creation implies God’s authority over the world (Rev 4:11). While the Genesis account has God ascribing “dominion” to humanity over the earth, it is possible to construe the original intent of humanity’s rule under God’s authority more as stewards rather than despots of creation (Ps8). In this role, humanity exists in right relationship with God and creation, actualising God’s authority as vice-regents. Dominion becomes exploitation when it is used at the expense of the good creation, alienating us from the earth and our fellow creatures, and exposing “the folly and wickedness of ignoring our creator and instructor”[7].

Thirdly, the doctrine of God as creator implies the goodness of creation. Although presently in a fallen state, all of creation, including the creatures brought forth by the earth and the seas, was held to be “very good” (Gen 1:31). In response, all creatures are able in some way to give glory to God their creator (Ps19:1), and God takes delight in them (Job 39 – 41). As the Spirit is the agent of the Father’s intention to bring all things in relation to himself through Christ, “we must say that whenever the created order, in any of its levels and aspects, is able to praise its maker, there is the agency of the Spirit”[8]. Moltmann argues for relationships of mutuality to describe a cosmic community of living between God the Spirit and all his created beings, “…an ecological doctrine of creation must today perceive and teach God’s immanence in the world….through his cosmic Spirit, God the creator of heaven and earth is present in each of his creatures and in the fellowship of creation which they share”[9].

Nevertheless, while nonhuman creatures and creation are presented as the inseparable companions of humanity in creation, reconciliation and redemption”[10], it is only God and humanity who are able to enter into a fellowship of persons. The creation of humanity as male and female in the image of God (Gen 1:27) establishes the foundation of this particular relationship from within the created order to the Godhead.

McGrath’s final implication for the doctrine of creation stems from human beings created in the image of God, and what this means for the relationship between God, humanity and creation. To be in the image of God is to exist in a vertical directedness to God our creator and redeemer, “to be oriented, in the time and space he has given, to a perfection of being for and in him”[11]. It is also to live in a horizontal network of relationships with other human beings and the rest of the non-personal created order. Thus, “[t]o be in the image of God is therefore to be called to represent God to the creation and the creation to God”[12].

We find our true identity in coexistence with each other and with all other creatures. Christ, as the full realisation of the image of God, re-orders and re-orients what this truly means. Gunton argues “that Jesus represents God to the creation in the way that the first human beings were called, but failed to do...and…that he enables other human beings to achieve the directedness to God of which their fallenness has deprived them”[13]. This imaging is achieved as a triune act through the power of the Spirit in a personal relationship of giving and receiving. Here, Moltmann’s description of the Trinity as “communal, social and family-like”[14] may be re-introduced to affirm the nature of God as person, “for only persons can be at one with one another”[15]. Humanity’s essentially relationality, attuned to the self-existent relationality at the heart of the triune God, leads to an interpretation of “the imago Dei as an imago Christi and an imago trinitatis.”[16]

[1] McGrath, Christian Theology, 21.
[2] McGrath, Christian Theology, 440-443.
[3] Karl Rahner, The Trinity (London: Burns and Oates, 1970).
[4] Steven Bouma-Prediger, The Greening of Theology: The Ecological Models of Rosemary Radford Ruether, Joseph Sittler, and Jürgen Moltmann (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1995), 163.
[5] Jürgen Moltmann, God in Creation: An Ecological Doctrine of Creation (London: SCM Press, 1985), 99.
[6] Bouma-Prediger, The Greening of Theology, 125.
[7] O. R. Barclay, ‘Creation’, in Sinclair B. Ferguson and David F. Wright (eds.), New Dictionary of Theology, (Illinois: Intervarsity Press, 1988), 178.
[8] Colin E. Gunton, Theology Through the Theologians: Selected Essays 1972-1995 (Edinburgh: T &T Clark, 1996), 120.
[9] Moltmann, God in Creation, 14.
[10] Daniel Migliore, Faith Seeking Understanding: An Introduction to Christian Theology (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1991), 97.
[11] Colin E. Gunton, Christ and Creation (Cumbria: Paternoster Press, 1982), 102.
[12] Gunton, Christ and Creation, 102.
[13] Gunton, Christ and Creation, 100.
[14] Bouma-Prediger, The Greening of Theology, 256.
[15] Jürgen Moltmann, The Trinity and the Kingdom, trans. Margaret Kohl. (New York: Harper and Row, 1981), 150.
[16] Migliore, Faith Seeking Understanding, 141.

Fall

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This state of fellowship did not endure. Humanity rebelled, wishing to turn things their own way, bringing death (Rom 6:12). As a consequence of this disobedience, the fellowship of the Spirit is broken. Humanity has fallen from their “original righteousness and communion with God and so became dead in sin and wholly defiled in all the parts and faculties of soul and body”[1]. Seen relationally, “sin is fundamentally opposition to grace. It is saying No to the invitation to receive God’s gift of life with our praise and thanksgiving, No to a life of glad service to God, No to a life of friendship with our fellow creatures.”[2]

This denial of the Spirit’s fellowship spreads insidiously to all aspects of the relationship of God, humanity and creation. As God’s image bearers, appointed as God’s vice-regents over creation, when humanity falls, so does the rest of God’s handiwork. The image is marred. The good creation itself is cursed because of human sin (Gen 3:17), and is a shadow of its former glory – there has been “a break in the harmony of creation”[3]. The fall is cosmic in scope – humanity and creation are in solidarity in their separation and alienation from God, but also alienated from each other.
In Romans 1 Paul links alienation from God to a misrepresentation of nature as divine and an object of worship. Humanity “exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshipped and served created things rather than the creator” (Rom 1:25). In its bondage to sin, creation groans (Rom 8:19ff). Creation is enslaved, alienated and yearns for liberty. Humanity and creation both are in need of a saviour.

[1] Orthodox Presbyterian Church. The Confession of Faith and Catechisms with Proof Texts: The Westminster Confession of Faith and Catechisms as adopted by The Orthodox Presbyterian Church. (Pennsylvania: The Committee on Christian Education of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, 2005). http://opc.org/documents/LCLayout1.pdf. Accessed 11 June 2006

[2] Migliore, Faith Seeking Understanding, 151
[3] Bouma-Prediger, The Greening of Theology, 240.

Redemption

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The pursuit of redemption is at the heart of all great dramas, and although fallen through sin, the world remains God’s good creation and capable of being redeemed. Here, Christ is the unifying person and controlling principle at the centre of this redemptive activity. God, entering into the creation in the person of Christ, takes on creatureliness to live as the full immanent revelation of God. The vertical dimension of relationality to the creator is restored as God acts in Christ, reconciling the world to himself. The horizontal dimension of fellowship with other people and non-human creation is worked out as the true man, Jesus, acts as the archetype of the Christian experience of life in the Spirit.

An inspection of the work of the Holy Spirit in the Christian life reveals more of the fellowship of the Spirit within humanity and creation. Beginning with revelation, Moltmann[1] examines the experience of the Holy Spirit in the Church that comes down to us. In the power of the Spirit, the believer is born again (John 3:5) and made a new creature in Christ (2 Cor 5:17). Importantly in the present context, in the community of the Spirit, believers are made one (Gal 3:28), holding everything in common (Acts 4:31-35). The fellowship of the Holy Spirit is the gift of the common participation[2] in the life of God (2 Cor 13:14). In addition, while the gifts of the same Spirit given to individuals for the common good are many and diverse (1 Cor 12:4-11) all come from the same source. All believers have been baptised by the one Spirit into the one body of Christ and given the one Spirit to drink (1 Cor 12:13). Redemption promises the hope of eternal life, a renewed relationship with God, and personal and communal transformation[3].

This new community, the Church, is the world’s witness to the unifying activity of the Spirit. Mutuality and a life of reconciliation and forgiveness, motivated by love is to mark all human relationships (1 Cor 13). This relationship of love “is the new way to be human with and for others supremely embodied in Jesus Christ and empowered by the Holy Spirit” [4]. Love, as self-identification with the other in the fellowship of the Spirit, is the sign of the true humanity in the new community. This is the way in which we were created to live. The Christian community is thus constituted by the Spirit as “the communion of saints”. This mystical communion – koinonia – is the participation, and sharing in the divine life of the triune God that holds the church together[5].

The church is also an eikon of the Trinity, where relationships within God are the model of how we relate to each other, mirroring the divine life itself. The mutual relationships among three co-equal persons within the Godhead provide a model for human relationships within communities[6]. To speak of the triune God is to speak of a human life that “is fulfilled only in relationship with God and others”[7]. As Torrence remarks, the fellowship of the Spirit brings us up into communion with God:

The triune God of grace who has his own true being-in-communion has created us in his image in order that we might find our true being-in-communion with him and one another. The ministry of Christ and the Spirit is to lift us up into this life of communion as members of the body of Christ, participating together in the very triune life of God.[8]

Given the restoration of humanity’s proper place through the focal point of Christ in relation to God and within creation, is the redemption of all things also promised, not just the human race? The understanding of “Christ as cosmic, Lord of nature as well as of history, agent of creation as well as of redemption”[9] offers a way of seeing the person and work of Christ as including not merely human history but the entire natural world. Romans 8:19-23 is often cited in this context. However, “it must be remembered that it is not creation that was made in the image of God, but man and woman”[10]. While the whole creation may grown with restlessness, and wait in eager expectation for its freedom from being subjected to frustration, the fact that it is Israel and Jesus who are at the centre of God’s action in and towards the world means that the personal is central, the non-personal peripheral[11]. This is not to deny a fellowship with creation and creatures in the Spirit, but to affirm that the focus of redemption is on humanity.

Further, one of the hallmarks of the experience of the fellowship of the Spirit in this present age is its partiality and provisionality. Although we have been saved (e.g. Rom 8:24), we are being saved (1 Cor 1:18), and we will be saved (e.g. Rom 13:11). New life in Christ by the power of the Spirit is only a foretaste of eternal life. We hope for the life of the world to come. As Moltmann writes:

Human beings already experience the indwelling of God in the Spirit here in history, even if yet only partially and provisionally. That is why they hope that in the kingdom of glory God will dwell entirely and wholly and for ever in his creation, and will allow all the beings he has created to participate in the fullness of his eternal life[12].
In solidarity with the whole groaning creation, we await the consummation of God’s redemptive activity.[13] As Pinnock comments, “We are trustees of the earth and fellow creatures with its inhabitants…. It is … the Spirit’s project, to be redeemed along with us. Nature is our home, blessed by God who took flesh, and it is destined for renewal”[14].

[1] Moltmann, God in Creation, 100.
[2] Geoffrey Wainwright ‘The Holy Spirit’ in Colin Gunton (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Christian Doctrine (Cambridge: CUP, 1997), 275.
[3] Alister McGrath, The Re-enchantment of Nature: Science, Religion and the Human Sense of Wonder (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2002), 51.
[4] Migliore, Faith Seeking Understanding, 161
[5] McGrath, Christian Theology, 493.
[6] McGrath, Christian Theology, 326.
[7] Migliore, Faith Seeking Understanding, 149.
[8] James B. Torrence, ‘Contemplating the Trinitarian Mystery of Christ’ in Kenneth J. Collins (ed.), Exploring Christian Spirituality: An Ecumenical Reader (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2000), 297.
[9] Bouma-Prediger, The Greening of Theology, 296.
[10] Gunton, Christ and Creation, 32.
[11] Gunton, Christ and Creation, 34.
[12] Moltmann, God in Creation, 5.
[13] Migliore, Faith Seeking Understanding, 159
[14] Clark H. Pinnock, Flame of Love: A Theology of the Holy Spirit (Illinois: Inter-Varsity Press, 1996) cited in McGrath, The Re-enchantment of Nature, 31.

...to eternity

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Ultimately, the experience of alienation between God, humans and the creation will be resolved at the eschaton, the time of the Sabbath rest where the original relationship of God, humanity and creation is restored. The future of the Spirit is experienced in the new creation, in “the rebirth of the cosmos to glory, the blessed community of creation which joins all separated creatures, and the direct fellowship with God of the creation united in Christ and renewed in the Spirit”[1]. There are numerous visions of this future of renewal and transformation in the Old and New Testaments, where “what has been distorted and ruined will finally be restored to its original integrity”[2]. No less so than in the creation of a new heaven and a new earth (Rev 21:1), when “in a final act of consummation the existing order will be renewed and refashioned” [3].

God will once again make his dwelling place with humanity and live with them (Rev 21:3). God has returned his fellowship with the lives of the redeemed – this time, not in a garden called Eden but in the City of God. Humans are offered a transformed a resurrected body, like Christ glorious body (1 Cor 15), and a continuation and fulfilment of the life in the Spirit that was initially offered as a “deposit” or “guarantee” of the inheritance of the world to come. At this time, the Spirit, as the perfecting cause[4] will “unite all things in Christ, things in heaven and things on earth” (Eph 1:10) .

Harmonious relations between humans and their fellow creatures are re-established (Isa 11:6-8), as they are among creatures (Isa 65:25). Creation itself, set free from its bondage to decay, will be enabled to “achieve the glorious freedom for which it was created”[5]. This is the time of “universal shalom when all creatures will live together in harmonious and joyful community”[6]. Here we find the vision of the renewed fellowship of the Spirit indwelling humanity and all creation, liberated from its bondage to the law of sin and death. The inevitable has become the eternal. The fellowship of the Spirit is fully unveiled to the community of the redeemed, and the presence of the LORD will dwell with them forever.

[1] Moltmann, God in Creation, 100.
[2] McGrath, The Re-enchantment of Nature, 50.
[3] McGrath, The Re-enchantment of Nature, 49.
[4] Gunton, Theology Through the Theologians, 120.
[5] McGrath, The Re-enchantment of Nature, 50.
[6] Migliore, Faith Seeking Understanding, 99.

Bibliography

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Barclay, O. R. “Creation”. In New Dictionary of Theology. Edited by Sinclair B. Ferguson and David F. Wright. Illinois: IVP, 1988.

Bouma-Prediger, Steven. The Greening of Theology: The Ecological Models of Rosemary Radford Ruether, Joseph Sittler, and Jürgen Moltmann. Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1995.

Gunton, Colin E. Christ and Creation. Cumbria: Paternoster Press, 1982.

Gunton, Colin E. Theology Through the Theologians: Selected Essays 1972-1995. Edinburgh: T &T Clark, 1996.

McGrath, Alister E. Christian Theology: An Introduction. Victoria: Blackwell, 2001.

McGrath, Alister. The Re-enchantment of Nature: Science, Religion and the Human Sense of Wonder. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2002.

Migliore, Daniel. Faith Seeking Understanding: An Introduction to Christian Theology. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1991.

Moltmann, Jürgen. God in Creation: An Ecological Doctrine of Creation. London: SCM Press, 1985.

Moltmann, Jürgen. The Trinity and the Kingdom. Translated by Margaret Kohl. New York: Harper and Row, 1981.

Orthodox Presbyterian Church. The Confession of Faith and Catechisms with Proof Texts: The Westminster Confession of Faith and Catechisms as adopted by The Orthodox Presbyterian Church. (Pennsylvania: The Committee on Christian Education of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, 2005). Retrieved on 11th June 2006 from http://opc.org/documents/LCLayout1.pdf.

Pinnock, Clark H. Flame of Love: A Theology of the Holy Spirit. Illinois: Intervarsity Press, 1996.

Torrence, James B. “Contemplating the Trinitarian Mystery of Christ”. In Exploring Christian Spirituality: An Ecumenical Reader. Edited by Kenneth J. Collins. Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 2000.

Tracey, David. God Action and Embodiment. Grand Rapids: Eardmans, 1984.

Rahner, Karl. The Trinity. London: Burns and Oates, 1970.

Wainwright, Geoffrey. “The Holy Spirit”. In The Cambridge Companion to Christian Doctrine. Edited by Colin Gunton. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997.
Zizioulas, John. Communion and Otherness. Retrieved on 14th June 2006 from http://www.orthodoxresearchinstitute.org/articles/liturgics/john_zizioulas_communion_otherness.htm

Three different paradigms of Christian religious education

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Christian education is a vast and diverse field and is characterised by a wide variety of approaches to practice and theory. It is shaped by and shapes the context in which it occurs. While reflecting the particular Biblical, theological, educational and philosophical emphases of its sources, it simultaneously informs and transforms those involved.

Christian education has a “pre-paradigmatic character”, that is, it is a discipline that is yet to develop a dominant model that guides all thought and practice, because of its focus on complex human subjects and their creation in the very image of God[1]. Hence, any educational concept or practice is by its nature tentative and changeable. Christian educators need to constantly reconsider the foundational questions, and need to be open and intentionally rely on the work of the Holy Spirit, who works as the unseen catalyst for learning through every aspect of the teaching-learning process.[2]

Nevertheless, Seymour and Miller[3] [4] have identified five different contemporary Christian educational approaches that have been of historical importance to Christian education. Five primary metaphors of Christian education are derived from studying current praxis, reflecting on some of the foundational assumptions and exploring the theological correlates. These metaphors are: Religious Instruction, Community of Faith, Development, Liberation and Interpretation. While no one particular viewpoint will fit precisely under these broad categories, they provides a set of organising principles that reflects and clarifies the state of the church’s education, and allow specific approaches to Christian education to be classified.

Hence, the biblical, theological, educational and philosophical foundations of three of these differing educational “paradigms” will be evaluated, using exemplars of current usage in the teaching ministry of congregations. My own preferred framework of Christian education will be explored within the discussion and critique of these perspectives, appropriating Pazmiño’s definition of education as “the process of sharing content with persons in the context of their communities and societies”[5]. Pazmiño’s educational trinity is based on a studying the content, context and persons of Jesus’ teaching, and follows the ideal of effective teaching as incarnated by Jesus the Master Teacher.

Content, persons and context thus provides the standard by which to prepare, implement and evaluate Christian education in its various forms. My personal approach is a therefore hybrid of the three educational paradigms under review. The content of the faith, based on the framework of “Religious Instruction”, will be explored from the evangelical perspective of Pazmiño[6], and address the content of the faith and the nature of tradition.
The connection of experiences of persons with the life of faith through the process of “Interpretation” will be addressed with reference to the work of Groome[7] [8], evaluating theological method and how religious and theological meanings are made. Finally, the context for faith, experienced in the “Community of Faith” will be outlined, engaging with the contribution of the Reformed Christian community as explained by Dykstra[9], and exploring the nature of the community of faith and how the church provides and transforms the activities of education.

Despite their diversity, the central theme all these approaches is the teaching of the Good News[10] – uniquely embodied in Jesus Christ as the very Son of God, and also as fully human. Jesus stands alone as the Master Teacher, “the exemplar or model for teaching whose life and ministry are worthy of passionate consideration and emulation”.[11]

[1] Robert W. Pazmiño, Foundational Issues in Christian Education: An Introduction in Evangelical Perspectives, 2nd rev. edn. (Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1997), 87.
[2] Gary Newton, “The Holy Spirit in the Educational Process” in Michael J. Anthony (ed.), Introducing Christian Education: Foundations for the Twenty-First Century (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2001), 129.
[3] Jack L. Seymour and Donald E. Miller (eds.) Contemporary Approaches to Christian Education (Nashville: Abingdon, 1982).
[4] Jack L. Seymour and Donald E. Miller (eds.) Theological Approaches to Christian Education (Nashville: Abingdon, 1990).

[5] “I define education as the process of sharing content with persons in the context of their communities and societies. This definition identifies an educational trinity of content, context and persons, that can serve to appreciate the teaching ministry of the Second Person of the divine Trinity, Jesus the Christ.” Robert W. Pazmiño, God Our Teacher: Theological Basics in Christian Education (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2001), 60.
[6] Robert W. Pazmiño, Principles and Practices of Christian Education: An Evangelical Perspective (Eugene, Oregon: Wipf and Stock, 2002).
[7] Thomas H. Groome, Christian Religious Education: Sharing Our Story and Vision (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1980).
[8] Thomas H. Groome, Sharing Faith: A Comprehensive Approach to Religious Education and Pastoral Ministry (San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1991).
[9] Craig Dykstra, Growing in the Life of Faith: Education and Christian Practices (Kentucky: Geneva Press, 1999).
[10] Donald E. Miller and Jack L. Seymour, “The Future” in Jack L. Seymour and Donald E. Miller (eds.) Contemporary Approaches to Christian Education (Nashville: Abingdon, 1982), 162.
[11] Pazmiño, God Our Teacher: Theological Basics in Christian Education, 60.

Religious Instruction

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The first educational paradigm under consideration is the approach of “Religious Instruction”, simply described by the goal of assisting learners in encountering God’s self revelation and tradition[1]. This is usually achieved through a process of formal theological reflection, of teaching and learning, involving knowing, interpreting and incarnating the faith in order to live responsibly and faithfully in the world – a “practical theology”.

Evangelical educator Robert Pazmiño discusses this approach within an “educational trinity” of content, persons and context, centred on God. God-centred Christian education establishes as its starting point the authority of God as revealed in Jesus Christ and illumined by the Holy Spirit through Scripture. The guide for Christian faith and practice is thus the Bible, from which essential principles can be derived that directly influence any educational approach. One notable guiding principle is the affirmation that all truth is God’s truth, which implies a unity in truth and a correspondence between scriptural truth and reality[2].

This God-centredness is operationalised within a five-task model of Christian education – proclamation, community, service, advocacy and worship - all essential to the life and mission of the church. The five-task model can be compared to five approaches identified by Seymour and Miller[3]. The two principles guiding the practice of evangelical Christian education are conversion and connection. Conversion involves human reconciliation with God, others and the creation - personal and corporate transformation is needed. Connection links the content, person and context and addresses the fragmentation of life and the faith of the Christian community[4].

More systematically, Pazmiño offers a definition of Christian education, as the

deliberate, systematic and sustained divine and human effort to share or
appropriate the knowledge, values, attitudes, skills, sensitivities, and
behaviours that comprise or are consistent with the Christian faith. It fosters
the change, renewal and reformation of persons, groups and structures by the
power of the Holy Spirit to conform to the revealed will of God as expressed in
the Old and New Testaments and pre-eminently in the person of Jesus Christ, as
well as any outcomes of that effort.[5]

The evangelical perspective thus begins from the perspective of an orthodox Christian faith. The theological distinctives are Biblical authority, the necessity of conversion, the redemptive work of Jesus Christ and personal piety, as well as adherence to the Apostles Creed. In addition, Pazmiño operates out of a Reformed view of education in conversation with liberation theology[6]. How we educate reflects our understanding and application of these theological principles[7], as educational theory and practice are not first about us but about God. Christian education begins with God’s revelation, the content. In this sense, the ultimate teacher is God, and all of life makes up the curriculum. The teacher works as a partner with God, relying on the sufficiency of God’s grace to transform the learner. However, Christian education must avoid teaching Bible and theology as ends in themselves, reducing them to purely cognitive constructs. Students are to learn to think in biblical ways, using theology to guide categories of thinking”[8]

Evangelical Christian education evaluates educational methods and philosophies from within this theological framework. It embraces insights from the social sciences and secular philosophies inasmuch as they can be admitted by the primary lens of Scripture[9]. This “bipolar unity” between theology and other forms of inquiry gives priority to theological insights and seeks to transform knowledge from other sources other than God’s primary revelation in order to acquire wisdom[10]. Any education that claims to be Christian needs to show faithfulness in this area of primary importance. Unfortunately, sophisticated and tenuous exegetical treatments may be offered as ways of justifying the inclusion or otherwise of secular insights. A more intellectually defensible approach allows Scripture speak in its area of expertise, and the social sciences in theirs where Scripture is silent.

For evangelical Christian educators, the witnesses of the Scriptures are understood to have a normative function for teaching / learning. Thus, for example, Pazmiño can call extensively on a reading of Jesus as the embodiment of the Master Teacher, and exegete a number of principles and implications for practice for Christian educators to emulate. In this instance, Jesus’ teaching was authoritative (Mk 1:21-22) and he spoke the very words of God (Jn 14:23-24). Hence Christian teachers have derivative authority, as they are faithful to God’s special and general revelation. Jesus’ teaching was not authoritarian (Jn 6:60-69), and so Christian teachers need to provide freedom of inquiry[11]. The strength of this approach is that the content and the method of teaching are tightly linked, however without appropriate humility this can lead to an arrogant stance that is final and beyond question.
The practical theology of the evangelical approach to Christian education directly appropriates the scope of the Great Commission (Mt 28:18-20) as an assurance of the presence of the risen Christ. This transformative presence is made available to all Christians who desire to model themselves on the life of Christ, empowered by the Holy Spirit, and empowering the educational effort.

[1] Jack L. Seymour and Donald E. Miller, “Openings to God: Education and Theology in Dialogue” in Jack L. Seymour and Donald E. Miller, eds., Theological Approaches to Christian Education, (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1990), 20.
[2] Pazmiño, Foundational Issues in Christian Education, 120.
[3] Pazmiño, Principles and Practices of Christian Education, 56.
[4] Pazmiño, Principles and Practices of Christian Education, 10-11.
[5] Pazmiño, Foundational Issues in Christian Education, 87.
[6] Pazmiño, Foundational Issues in Christian Education, 55-70.
[7] Charles Dunahoo, “September-October 03 Book Review”. Retrieved on April 29th 2006 from http://www.pcacep.org/publications/EquipArchives/2003/Sept/TeachingCross.htm.
[8] Perry G. Downs, Teaching for Spiritual Growth (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1994), 64-65.
[9] Warren S. Benson, “Philosophical Foundations of Christian Education” in Michael J. Anthony (ed.) Introducing Christian Education (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2001), 27.
[10] Richard R. Osmer, “A New Clue for Religious Education?” in James M. Lee (ed.) Forging a Better Religious Education in the Third Millennium (Birmingham, Alabama: Religious Education Press, 2000), 188.
[11] Pazmiño, Principles and Practices of Christian Education, 125-132

Interpretation

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The next Christian educational paradigm to be evaluated addresses the process of interpretation. The “interpretive” approach to Christian education argues that connecting Christian perspectives and practices to contemporary experiences is the primary task. Its agenda is not the Bible or life only, but both. The “task of Christian education is to engage the faith-story and the experience of living in a dialogical relationship from which meaning for living emerges.”[1]

The interpretive approach of Thomas Groome provides a popular example of this educational paradigm at work in the life of congregations. Groome has been influenced by progressive educator John Dewey’s idea of experience and reflection, and of the “reconstruction of experience”[2]. This theory / practice relationship at the centre of education describes thought emerging out of and reconstructing experience in an ongoing fashion. Concerns arise when this “reconstruction” is understood to occur solely in the mind of the learner without reference to the transformative, 6teaching ministry of the Spirit. While much can be gained from a study of Dewey, his ahistorical approach, anti-supernaturalism and misplaced faith in the saving nature of progressive education are criticisms that have been levelled in addressing the strength of his influence on Christian education[3].

In his “Shared Praxis” approach, Groome deliberately favours the term praxis over practice. Praxis refers to “reflective action”, or an interaction of theory and practice not adequately described by one term. In arriving at this, Groome is particular indebted to the work of Brazilian educational philosopher and social educator Paulo Friere[4]. Friere has been influenced by elements of existentialism and the “praxis epistemologies” of Marxism, and these elements can be seen in Groome’s interpretation.

Friere’s reconstructionist views informed a commitment to establish an ideal and more just society, demanding the changing of the alleged obsolete and oppressive values and ideas of traditional education[5]. Liberation is offered through the process of praxis, a process of reflection followed by action and further reflection. Learners are thus active, creative subjects with the capacity to examine critically, interact with, and transform the world. However, despite being problematic as a theological influence, Friere offers insights that address areas of weakness for Christian educators - thought is to be grounded in authentic practice[6].

Groome’s “shared praxis approach” essentially applies Friere’s insights to a middle class context. It is described thus:

Christian religious education by shared praxis can be described as a group of
Christians sharing in dialogue their critical reflection on present action in
light of the Christian Story and its Vision toward the end of the lived
Christian faith.[7]

The five “movements” of “shared Christian praxis”, after an attention getting focussing activity, consist of (1) Present action (2) Critical reflection (3) Story and its Vision (4) Dialectic between Story and stories (5) Vision and visions[8].

A Biblical illustration for this approach may be taken from the post-resurrection appearance of Christ to the two disciples on the road to Emmaus (Lk 24:13-35). Jesus’ discussion with the disciples can be loosely exegeted as an example of the five-point process, where the disciples’ present situation and is explored and reflected upon, the Story presented, and their appropriations and decisions elucidated. Further connections between “shared Christian praxis” and the approach of Jesus are drawn with the parables of Jesus, especially in the context in which they were first told.

The idea of the subject who freely seeks, knows and chooses the good is crucial to Groome’s understanding of the Christian faith. Jesus is held as the revealer of human being / knowing who “did the will of God perfectly [and so] could claim to know the Father best”. God desires similar human liberation and freedom in the Old Testament, for example Isaiah 58:6-7, and in the New, where Jesus “affirms and reveals the capacity of the subject to be and know freely, by offering a spiritual, personal and social / political freedom to those who seek, chose, and know the good”[9]. As communal beings, learners are called to right and loving relationship with God, self, others, and creation, and are also capable of sin and grace[10]. However, there is a tremendous optimism in an individual’s inherent orientation towards freely seeking, knowing and choosing the good. Groome’s construction of a “free knowing choosing subject” leans towards an absolute sort of freedom that is at odds with the broken / redeemed human condition of Scripture.

Despite his influence in his Catholic context[11] Groome has come under severe criticism, notably for “a deeply embedded scepticism regarding the doctrinal content of Catholic teaching”[12]. These difficulties take place especially in movement three (Story and its Vision) of the “shared praxis model” where the educator shares the Story of the faith community in light of learner’s reflection on present experience. Groome asserts that certain official church teachings are “not appropriate to movement 3 of shared Christian praxis”[13]. According to the critics, the “shared praxis” method is “not designed to teach the Faith, but to undermine it in favour of an outlook incompatible with orthodox Christianity”[14]

While Groome’s “shared praxis model” offers opportunities for exploring the subjective appropriation of the Christian Story in an authentic dialogical relationship with the learner, educators also have a responsibility to represented fairly and accurately the Story itself, “the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints” (Jude 1:3).

[1] Jack L. Seymour and Carol A. Wertheim, “Faith Seeking Understanding: Interpretation as a Task of Christian Education” in Contemporary Approaches to Christian Education (Nashville: Abingdon, 1982), 124.
[2] Sara Little, To Set One’s Heart: Belief and Teaching in the Church (Atlanta: John Knox Press, 1983), 83.
[3] Pazmiño, Foundational Issues in Christian Education, 155.
[4] Little, To Set One’s Heart, 82.
[5] Bensen, “Philosophical Foundations of Christian Education”, 32.
[6] For an extended summary of the merits of Friere’s educational and theological approach, see Pazmiño, Foundational Issues in Christian Education, 75-80.
[7] Groome, Christian Religious Education, 184.
[8] Groome, Christian Religious Education, 207-208.
[9] This summary of Groome’s approach is taken from Tom Beaudoin, “The Theological Anthropology of Thomas Groome”, Religious Education Spring (2005). Retrieved on May 5th 2006 from
http://www.looksmartreligions.com/p/articles/mi_qa3783/is_200504/ai_n13642193/pg_8?pi=edurel
[10] Groome, Sharing Faith,, 429-431.
[11] The General Directory for Catechesis contains several themes that draw on his work. See Beaudoin, “The Theological Anthropology of Thomas Groome”.
[12] Eamonn Keane, “Thomas Groome: His Influence on Religious Education Continues”, AD2000 15, no. 11 (December 2002 – January 2003), 8.
[13] Groome, Sharing Faith, 218-219.
[14] John Young, “Review of A Generation Betrayed: Deconstructing Catholic Education in the English Speaking World”, AD2000 15, no. 10 (November 2002), 17.

Community of Faith

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The final educational paradigm to be evaluated is the notion of the “Faith Community”. This approach is characterised by the goal of helping people understand and embody the meaning of being a people of God and a community of faith in the world[1].

The faith community captures the power of the congregation to teach, and is both the content and the process of Christian education. Learning the faith occurs through participation in a faith community that seeks to enhance the relationship of persons to others, communities and the larger world, connecting people, communities and creation.[2]

What is the nature of the community of faith, and how does the church provide and transform the activities of education? Craig Dykstra attempts to answer this question and what it means to live the Christian life faithfully and well. He explores the contribution of that which helps people grow in faith: the traditions, education, worship practices, and disciplines of the Reformed church community.

Dykstra begins with identifying a widespread spiritual hunger that is prevalent in our age – and rightly admonishes those who would conflate the Christian faith with a way of making sense out of life. “Meaning” and “faith” are not the same - meaning is a by-product of faith, not its substance. The true satisfaction for this hunger is identified as Christ, and those who lose their strivings for meaning have them returned as a gift (c.f. Matt 16:25). The very shape of the church as the redeemed community is the primary setting and resource for education. Only with this corporate view of education, a process the apostle Paul called “building up” the body of Christ (1 Cor 14:12), where communities seeking to incarnate Christ’s presence, can our personal quests for Christian faith and vocation be nurtured.[3]

This transformational aim of Christian education is actualised most naturally within the context of community. Particular emphasis is placed in both the Old and New Testaments on the interactive, interpersonal and learning situations that transform our beliefs, attitudes, values, and behavioural practices[4] (Deut 6:1-9, 11:18-21; Acts 2:42-47; Eph 4:15-16; Heb 10:24-25). Christianity is essentially an embodied way of community life that sources its power intergenerationally in specific, overtly Christian practices – the ordinary practices that the church has been doing for centuries.

Writing from a Reformed perspective, Dykstra draws on an educational approach informed by classical Protestant understandings of Christine doctrine and practice. The life of the Spirit is recognized and lived as it is consistently and deeply participated in within communities that know God’s love, acknowledge it, express it, and live their lives in its light. Hence, the faith community enables the realisation of the “new life in Christ”, and carries on its life through certain “practices” that are constitutive of the shape of its life together in the world. Such practices are explained as “outward and ordinary means” or “ordinances”, functioning as means of grace[5].

Further, people come to faith and grow in the life of faith by participating in these practices. Dykstra provides a number of examples such as worship, telling the Christian story, interpreting Scriptures and the church’s history, praying, confessing sin, encouragement, service, witness, giving, hospitality, and so on[6]. Hence, the educational task of the faith community is to encourage participation in such communal practices[7].

To inform his understanding of “practice” Dykstra borrows a very complicated definition from the philosopher Alasdair McIntyre[8]. As McIntyre describes practices, they are cooperative human activities through which individuals and communities grow and develop in moral character and substance, and continuously reflected upon to ensure they remain faithful to their tradition. However, McIntyre’s approach may have more far reaching implications, especially in the place of theology, his treatment of virtue, and his radicalisation by other authors[9].

The practices of the community of faith and the educative function are more than simply matters of socialisation or enculturation. Otherwise they would becomes self-referential, and devolve into mere ritualised formalism. Having lost touch with the substance of the faith, and no longer lived in the power of the Spirit, their power to form and transform is lost. Authentic faith practices are actions that enable us to live and grow as disciples, with their source in Scripture but lived in the world. They “grow out of love, and integrate love of God, neighbour and self in ways that can transform the world”[10]. These activities are how we “do faith”; how Christians practice loving God, practice loving others, and practice loving themselves. By learning the practices of the faith community, and through long, slow steady, patient participation, individuals and communities learn the Christian faith and grow as disciples[11]. Practices of the faith are ultimately habitations of the Spirit, in whom we are invited to participate with in the educating work of God’s Spirit amongst us. Thus, “education in faith itself becomes a means of grace”[12].

[1] Seymour and Miller, Theological Approaches to Christian Education, 20.
[2] Robert T. O’ Gorman, “The Faith Community” in Jack L. Seymour (ed.) Mapping Christian Education: Approaches to Congregational Learning (Abingdon Press: Nashville, 1997), 41-57.
[3] Charles R. Foster, Educating Congregations: The Future of Christian Education (Abingdon Press, Nashville, 1994), 14.
[4] Benson, “Philosophical Foundations of Christian Education”, 34.
[5] Dykstra, Growing in the Life of Faith, 41. Here Dykstra is appealing for support to the title of Book 4 of Calvin’s Institutes and the Presbyterian Larger Catechism.
[6] Dykstra, Growing in the Life of Faith, 42-43.
[7] C. F. Melchert, “Theology Today: Growing in the Life of Faith: Education and Christian Practices”, Theology Today (July, 2001).
[8] Dykstra , Growing in the Life of Faith, 68.
[9] For a further critique see Melchert’s review in “Theology Today: Growing in the Life of Faith: Education and Christian Practices”
[10] Beth M. Halvorsen, Doing Faith: Basic Practices for Growing Christians (Augsburg Fortress, 1999), 15.
[11] Evangelical Lutheran Church of America. Retrieved on April 14th 2006 from
http://www.elca.org/init/teachthefaith/announcementsheet.html
[12] Dykstra, Growing in the Life of Faith, 78.

Conclusion

2006-05-17T15:36:00.000+10:00

These three different paradigms – religious instruction, interpretation and the community of faith - correspond to Pazmiño’s description of the foci of education, emphasising the importance of content taught to persons in their context, while remaining God-centred. Jesus, the Master Teacher, after whom we are called to model ourselves, exemplifies the keeping together of orthodoxy (right beliefs) with orthopraxy (right practices).[1]

My own approach has been to highlight and identify those aspects of these approaches that have seemed to tie in with this broader perspective, while affirming areas of strength and identifying weaknesses. In particular, the evangelical approach to Christian education described by Pazmiño’s provides a coherent unifying theological theme that lays the groundwork for subsequent reflection upon particular interpretive methods or actions within a faith community. Humility, rather than hubris, will enable the charge of arrogance to be avoided. The strength of Groome’s “shared Christian praxis” is that it intentionally opens up a dialogical space between teacher and learner. However its weakness is exposed by the willingness or ability of the educator to clearly and accurately represent the faith Story. Dykstra’s practices of the faith community are affirmed as a means of grace, but openness to the work of the Spirit is essential if a dry and empty formalism is to be avoided

As God accommodates himself to us in the person of Christ, and the Scriptures represent God’s accommodation of revelation to human capacity, so also must educators accommodate their teaching to their audience. The practical work of the educator is underpinned by their spoken and unspoken assumptions about the nature of Christian education. By foregrounding these underlying issues, Christian educators are enabled to play their part: to follow the example of Christ; to cooperate with the ministry of the Spirit; and to bring people to God.

[1] Pazmiño, God Our Teacher, 157.

Bibliography

2006-05-17T15:34:00.000+10:00

Beaudoin, Tom. “The Theological Anthropology of Thomas Groome”, Religious Education Spring (2005). Retrieved on May 5th 2006 from
http://www.looksmartreligions.com/p/articles/mi_qa3783/is_200504/ai_n13642193/pg_8?pi=edurel

Benson, Warren S. “Philosophical Foundations of Christian Education”. In Introducing Christian Education: Foundations for the Twenty-First Century. Edited by Michael J. Anthony. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2001, 26-34.

Downs, Perry G. Teaching for Spiritual Growth. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1994.

Dunahoo, Charles. “September-October 03 Book Review”. Retrieved on April 29th 2006 from http://www.pcacep.org/publications/EquipArchives/2003/Sept/TeachingCross.htm.

Dykstra, Craig, Growing in the Life of Faith: Education and Christian Practices. Kentucky: Geneva Press, 1999.

Evangelical Lutheran Church of America. Retrieved on April 14th 2006 from
http://www.elca.org/init/teachthefaith/announcementsheet.html

Foster, Charles R. Educating Congregations: The Future of Christian Education. Abingdon Press, Nashville, 1994.

Groome, Thomas H. Christian Religious Education: Sharing Our Story and Vision. San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1980.

Groome, Thomas H. Sharing Faith: A Comprehensive Approach to Religious Education and Pastoral Ministry. San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1991.

Halvorsen, Beth M. Doing Faith: Basic Practices for Growing Christians. Augsburg Fortress, 1999.

Keane, Eamonn. “Thomas Groome: His Influence on Religious Education Continues”, AD2000 15, no. 11 (December 2002 – January 2003), 8.

Little, Sara. To Set One’s Heart: Belief and Teaching in the Church. Atlanta: John Knox Press, 1983.

Melchert, C. F. “Theology Today: Growing in the Life of Faith: Education and Christian Practices”, Theology Today (July, 2001).

Miller, Donald E. and Seymour, Jack L., “The Future”. In Contemporary Approaches to Christian Education. Edited by Jack L. Seymour and Donald E. Miller. Nashville: Abingdon, 1982, 145-164.

Newton, Gary. “The Holy Spirit in the Educational Process” in Introducing Christian Education: Foundations for the Twenty-First Century. Edited by Michael J. Anthony. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2001, 125-129.

O’ Gorman, Robert T. “The Faith Community”. In Mapping Christian Education: Approaches to Congregational Learning. Edited by Jack L. Seymour. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1997, 41-57.

Osmer, Richard R. “A New Clue for Religious Education?” In Forging a Better Religious Education in the Third Millennium. Edited by James M. Lee. Birmingham, Alabama: Religious Education Press, 2000.

Pazmiño, Robert W. Foundational Issues in Christian Education: An Introduction in Evangelical Perspectives, 2nd rev. edn. Grand Rapids: Baker Books, 1997.

Pazmiño, Robert W. God Our Teacher: Theological Basics in Christian Education. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2001.

Pazmiño, Robert W. Principles and Practices of Christian Education: An Evangelical Perspective. Eugene, Oregon: Wipf and Stock, 2002.

Seymour, Jack L. and Miller, Donald E. (eds.) Contemporary Approaches to Christian Education. Nashville: Abingdon, 1982.

Seymour, Jack L. and Miller, Donald E., “Openings to God: Education and Theology in Dialogue”. In Theological Approaches to Christian Education. Edited by Jack L. Seymour and Donald E. Miller. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1990.

Seymour, Jack L. and Miller, Donald E. (eds.) Theological Approaches to Christian Education. Nashville: Abingdon, 1990.

Seymour, Jack L. and Wertheim, Carol A. “Faith Seeking Understanding: Interpretation as a Task of Christian Education”. In Contemporary Approaches to Christian Education. Edited by Jack L. Seymour and Donald E. Miller. Nashville: Abingdon, 1982, 123-143.

Young, John. “Review of A Generation Betrayed: Deconstructing Catholic Education in the English Speaking World”, AD2000 15, no. 10 (November 2002), 17.

Wow, That's a First!

2006-05-09T15:39:00.000+10:00

The title of this article caught my eye - the news media are foregrounding all Bishop's, and by extension, all Christian's, sexuality. Imagine "heterosexual President" or "heterosexual news anchor" as a headline. No? Because the sexuality issue is for grabs in the reporting of Chrsitianity. Are Christians that obsessed with sex, or just the mainstream meadia?

"Heterosexual Elected Episcopal Bishop of Calif"--headline, Reuters,
May 6

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - The Episcopal Diocese of California on Saturday
avoided widening a rift over gays in the global Anglican Communion by electing a
heterosexual man as its next bishop.

More than 1,000 clergy and laypeople packed Grace Cathedral in San
Francisco's tony Nob Hill neighborhood to elect the Rt. Rev. Mark Andrus as
successor to longtime Bishop William Swing, who is retiring after 27
years.

Two openly gay men and one lesbian were among the seven candidates on
the ballot.
No gay or lesbian cleric has been elected bishop since the
consecration of Eugene Robinson in 2003 as bishop of New Hampshire threw the
U.S. church and the worldwide family of 77 million Anglicans into turmoil.

"Your vote today remains a vote for inclusion and communion -- of gay
and lesbian people in their full lives as single or partnered people, of women,
of all ethnic minorities, and all people," Andrus said by telephone over the
cathedral's public address system to members after being told of his election.
"My commitment to Jesus Christ's own mission of inclusion is resolute."

Rev. Andrus of Alabama was elected with 72 percent of the clergy vote
and 55 percent of the lay vote. The Rev. Canon Eugene Sutton of Washington,
D.C., who is also heterosexual, came in second, with 13 percent of the clergy
vote and 33 percent of the lay vote.

and so on...

Here's a comment from the (newly elected) Bishop himself on EpiscoLesGay issues:

An example of a conflict situation is my stance in the Diocese of Alabama
following the 2003 General Convention. In my public addresses during the months
following the Convention I sought to speak in such a way that evoked a sense of
our basic relatedness despite differences in position on the issues around human
sexuality. I admitted that while the decisions of the General Convention were
grounded in prayer and in an understanding of the scriptures, the possibility
was certainly there that we had erred. I expressed a conviction that full truth
remains beyond us, both on this and many other issues, and that an attitude of
non-judging would help us move toward that truth. Both the diocesan bishop and I
were careful to let the diocese know that despite our differences on the issues,
we were and are united in Christ, and this despite some efforts to separate us.
I called the diocese to engagement in mission, while emphasizing that the
inclusion of gay and lesbian people in the full life of the Church is a matter
of justice, and not a trivial matter. I took care to maintain my spiritual life
in the face of controversy and hostility. With another general convention
nearing, I believe that my approach, as well as that of most of the laity and
clergy of the diocese has moved us forward to a healthier more integrated
understanding of what it means to be a Christian community. Source

Note the criteria on which the issue is evaluated:

1. People who disagree over the "gay" issue are basically related (he doesn't say how)

2. Decisions grounded in prayer and in "an understanding" of Scripture, include the "possibility was certainly there" (whatever that means) of error - so how confident can be be in our Chrsitain decsions at a personal or concillar level?

3. He is convicted (a grounds for truth, perhaps?) that "the full truth remains beyond us". Two points:

a) His basis for truth (personal conviction) trumps the possibility of other truths

b) "full truth" - does this mean full in the sense of "sufficient" or "exhaustive"? Surely we can know something sufficiently - otherwise the Bishops' own personaly 'conviction' would not be admitted. Exhaustively, however, impies a different category of knowledge altogether - he is asking the impossible, and not getting it, offers it as (certain!) proof that certainty on this matter is unattainable. In other words, he is sure is opponents are wrong. But doesn't this contradict the principle of non-judging (4)

4. Non-judging will help us move towards the truth - but what about the "conviction" above? If we are not going to differentiate "truth" from "non-truth" (ie make a judgement call), how on earth otherwise are we supposed to tell the difference? And I don't think he means "non-judging" as in "non-homophobic discriminatory bigot".

5. People with differences on major doctrinal issues (as this is, striking at theological anthropology like nothing else of late) are united in Christ. What are the criteria for discovering who is "united in Christ"? Oh, yeah, can't tell, becuase we're busy being non-judging(!)

6. There are efforts to separate the pro-gay and anti-gay lobby

7. Inclusion of gay/lesbians is a matter of justice - note the logic:

inclusion = justice, justice = inclusion

therefore

exclusion = injustice, injustice = exclusion

We now have the foundation for including everything under the name of justice. Is this what justice really means? It is certainly not a trivial matter, which by the way, is not the opposite of justice, nor what his opponents are advocating. This is a "straw man" indeed.

8. Disputants must maintain their "spiritual life" - is this by prayer and reading of Scripture? But this invites the "possibility [that] was certainly there" of error! Any personal convictions about that one? They seem to be the order of the day in terms of truth claims.

9. There are approaches that "move forward to be more healthier and integrated". Then there must be apparoches that are "unhealthy" and "fragmented". Once, homosexuality was considered akin to a mental illness, and hence being "gay" meant being "sick". Once, Western society regarded homosexuals as "sick" as in "perverse". Now, those who hold views at variance with the good Bishop are the "sick" ones. I am not saying that this is right. Only that a contradiction is emerging.

How long will it be until the "unreconstructed" views of those who disagree with the Bishop are completely marginalised? Where is the "non-judging" now?

The way we’ve always done it: How is Tradition related to Revelation?

2006-04-18T19:03:00.001+10:00

Christ is the head of the church over which he rules through the Scriptures, and so of its tradition. Tradition refers to “the handing down of the faith from generation to generation”[1]. All Christians are shaped by tradition, whether they are acknowledged or implicit.

Tradition is not regarded as a separate and distinct source of revelation in addition to Scripture[2]. While the teachings and traditions the apostles received directly from Christ and passed onto the earliest Christians existed before the authoring of the New Testament canon, the Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments serve as the definitive witnesses to Christ. Fidelity to the revelation of God in Christ is maintained through conformity to Scripture, as the reliable public written record of these traditions, rather than to the teachings of the church, which may err, although not ultimately.

Formal traditions such as creeds, confessions, and dogmas, and informal traditions that operate within a faith community such as the authority of a pastor, or the “private judgement” of individuals must be tested against the revelation found in Scripture. Tradition is a response to revelation and is authoritive only to the extent that it is consistent with Scripture. The relationship between Scripture, tradition and the church is thus ancillary, subordinating the tradition and the teaching authority of the church to the supreme authority of the Scriptures[3].

Tradition is also understood to mean “a traditional way of interpreting Scripture within the community of faith”[4]. Thus how Scripture is handled in a tradition of interpretation becomes salient. Traditions of interpretation can be regarded as providing a guide to the interpretation of Scripture. Migliore identifies that “Scripture must be interpreted ecclesially”[5], that is, “in the context of the life and witness of the church”[6]. The church as an interpretive community has certain rules of understanding (“traditions”) of the scared writings, including the Christocentric rule of faith, the rule of love, and the rule of hope. Theses rules are not arbitrary, but informed by the Scriptures themselves. Thus Scripture “only functions as such when it is embedded within a tradition of pious use it both informs and is informed by”[7].

This is not to then elevate these hermeneutical principles above Scripture. Rather, it is to identify the extent to which Christ is revealed when such ecclesial interpretive traditions represent faithful interpretations of Scripture. Although tradition is worthy of respect and can provide an interpretive framework which guides the reading of Scripture, “[t]he Scriptures remain the decisive and final authority, the norm by which all the teaching of tradition and the church is to be tested”[8].

[1] Anthony N. S. Lane, “Tradition” in Dictionary for Theological Interpretation of the Bible, ed. Kevin J. Vanhoozer (Michigan: Baker Academic, 2005), 809.

[2] Alister E. McGrath, Christian Theology: An Introduction (Victoria: Blackwell, 2001), 186.

[3] Lane, “Tradition”, 811.

[4] McGrath, Christian Theology: An Introduction, 186.

[5] Migliore, Faith Seeking Understanding, 58.

[6] Migliore, Faith Seeking Understanding, 58.

[7] Gerard Loughlin “The basis and authority of doctrine” in Colin Gunton (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Christian Doctrine (Cambridge: CUP, 1997), 48.

[8] Packer, “Scripture”, 628.

What is Revelation

2006-04-18T19:03:00.000+10:00

Attempts to explain what Christians know about God and how they have access to this knowledge appeal to “revelation” – the epistemological basis for theology[1]. The sources of theology – Scripture, Tradition, Reason and Experience – diversely and interdependently relate to Revelation in a variety of ways. Revelation itself is variously defined as an unveiling or disclosure initiated on behalf of God. This first step on God’s part is necessary because revelation expresses a previous mystery, by its very nature inaccessible to human understanding and inquiry. Such revelation is also a demonstration of grace. God’s revelation is particularly personal, showing his willingness to share with us aspects of the very nature of God. This personal revelation is decisively embodied in the person of Jesus Christ, and is “unique, normative and unsurpassable”[2]. The word of God in the person of Jesus Christ Jesus is the content of revelation, while its purpose is directed towards a fallen humanity to achieve a salvific intent.

Thus, Christ as the revealer of the Father is diversely but not equally made known through each of these ‘sources’ of theology. Christ is in Scripture, the living word to whom they testify; in Tradition, as the head of the Church; in Reason, as the ordering principle that makes reason function; and in Experience, as the One who meets us in our experience[3]. As Jesus said, “Don’t you know me…? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father; No-one comes to the Father except through me” (Jn 14: 6, 9).

[1] George Stroup, “Revelation” in Peter C. Hodgson and Robert H. King (eds), Christian Theology: An Introduction to Its Traditions and Tasks 2^nd rev. edn. (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1985), 114.

[2] Daniel Migliore, Faith Seeking Understanding: An Introduction to Christian Theology (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1991), 52.

[3] Anonymous, “Sources for Theology”. Retrieved on March 16^th 2006 from http://digitalstudio.calvin.edu/rel131/help/hques1.htm

I think therefore I AM: How is Reason related to Revelation?

2006-04-18T19:02:00.000+10:00

Christ is the ordering principle that makes reason function. He is the power of God and the wisdom of God (1 Cor 1:24), and all things were created through, by and for the divine Logos (Jn 1:1-3). Hence, in the created handiwork of God, Christ is revealed in the faculty of human reason by merit of its status as a member of that created order. As bearers of the image of God (Gen 1:26), we share God’s capacity for rationality, although humanity appropriates the divine reason in a derivative rather than original manner. Humans are rational beings, capable of “argument, logic and the rest”[1] using reason “in seeing, hearing and judging…revelation…[which is] not set in opposition or sharp contrast to reason”[2]. Reason is the faculty by which revelation is apprehended, however perspectively as a function of human finitude. Thus, the created does not enjoy the same freedom of action in reasoning as the creator working through the divine logos.

This implies a broader view, an “ontological” sense, which describes reason’s capacity to grasp the very nature of reality to a greater or lesser extent[3]. It is important to avoid two extremes of conviction. The first is the over-confidence in reason inspired by the Enlightenment project, in which the faculty of reason is elevated to be the supreme authority on ultimate truth. Reason is used to lead into a rationally defensible theism or used to antagonistically deny revelation as empirically inaccessible[4]. The second conviction is the “hermeneutics of suspicion”[5] inspired by a postmodern rejection of reason as a way of knowing anything with certainty. Reason is relativised from its privileged position as final arbiter of truth, and is located as a socially and cultured constructed product rather than as a means for engaging with ‘real world’ ‘out there’.

However, from ‘general revelation’ the knowledge of God is abundantly made available to all in the created order (Ps 19:1) and in human conscience (Rom 1:20). Despite this, reason is still limited because of the effects of sin as a consequence of the fall. Reason is rightly an object of suspicion, as the human ability to rationally comprehend unaided how “general revelation” reveals the character of a saving God is ultimately limited.

It is only in the special revelation, that testifies to the saving nature and character of God made known in the person of Christ as found in the Scriptures, that reason is able to apprehend God. This revelation of God through Christ is publicly made known through the empirical emphasis of the gospel reports, the significance of which “provides grounds for believing that are within the objective capacity of human reason to comprehend”[6] Nevertheless, knowledge alone about Jesus as presented in the gospels is insufficient to compel faith on the basis of reason alone. It is indeed “foolishness to the Greeks” (1 Cor 1:23). Ultimately, the cause of personal conviction and certainty lies in the operation of the Spirit of God, testifying to Christ, who is the revealer – a saving knowledge that dispels spiritual ignorance.

[1] Gunton, “Historical and systematic theology”, 13.

[2] Stephen N. Williams, “Revelation” in Dictionary for Theological Interpretation of the Bible, ed. Kevin J. Vanhoozer (Michigan: Baker Academic, 2005), 679.

[3] Gunton, “Historical and systematic theology”, 13.

[4] Gunton, “Historical and systematic theology”, 10.

[5] Bowald, “Grace”, 269.

[6] Williams, “Revelation”, 680.

Can you feel it? How is Experience Related to Revelation?

2006-04-18T19:01:00.000+10:00

Christ is revealed to us by the Spirit as he meets us in our experience of the true church. Wherever the gospel is truly preached, and the sacraments rightly administered, there is Christ. Special revelation provides the framework for contextualising our subjective experiences. The objective dimension of special revelation deals with the historic events narrated by Scripture and divine speech[1], which has at its heart the incarnation of the Son of God. The subjective dimension addresses how this is received.

Formerly, appeals to experience were descriptions of what happens in the Christian life. Now experience is taken as an authority all on its own. However, an over-emphasis on experience to the point of marginalizing or excluding the controlling witness of Scripture produces highly subjective interpretations. Inner experience, self-referentially regarded as true and authentic, becomes the privileged starting point.

Such a strong emphasis on the inner workings of the Spirit over and above the function of the Scriptures, the external Word, produces a totally subjective approach to ‘religious experience’, leaning heavily towards a ‘Christian mysticism’ that rejects both Scripture and tradition. Vague and ambiguous transcendent experiences, located in the private realm, are unreliable and unverifiable as they are can only be judged internally. Indeed, such experiences may be no more than a psychological response evoked by the demands of the situation or the phenomenological realm of the ‘believer’.

Hence, experience can neither be the starting point nor the decisive criterion for evaluating revelation – it is the consequence of an encounter with the Spirit of God who condescends to make himself known in ways we can know and understand subjectively.

The experience of Christ in the Spirit must be subject to the external standards and criteria set forth in Scripture, and validated by the faith community, in order to be consistent with the God who has spoken once for all. The enlightening ministry of the Spirit interprets to us the contents of Scripture rather than embolden fresh revelation[2]. The hidden work of the Spirit enables the exercise of faith needed to interpret the experience as an encounter with God[3]. Thus Scripture, the external Word of God, becomes revelatory and salvific on the reception of the inward testimony of the living Spirit, justifying, regenerating and sanctifying the believer within the community of faith.

This community is ordered in such a way that the experience of the revealed character of God also becomes accessible in ecclesiastical tradition – in histories of narrative performance, communal practices of prayer and charity[4]. The preaching of the word and the right administration of the sacrament are connected with the presence of Christ – and wherever Christ is, there his church is to be found as well[5].

[1] Migliore, Faith Seeking Understanding, 29.

[2] “The office of the Spirit…is not to form new and unheard of revelations or to coin new forms of doctrine, by which we may be led away from the received doctrine of the gospel, but to seal on our minds the very doctrine which the gospel recommends”. John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion, trans. H. Beveridge (Michigan: Eerdmans, 1989), I.ix.2

[3] Packer, “Scripture”, 573.

[4] Loughlin “The basis and authority of doctrine”, 50.

[5] McGrath, Christian Theology: An Introduction, 489.

The beginning of the end, or the end of the beginning?

2006-04-18T19:00:00.000+10:00

The relation of Scripture, Tradition, Reason and Experience to Revelation is diverse and interdependent. The saving character of revelation is seen in Christ: as he is revealed in the Scriptures; as the head of the Church and its tradition; as the ordering principle that makes reason function; and as the One who meets us in our experience. The gracious self-disclosure of God in the person and work of Christ is specifically salvific in nature, and is sufficient for those who exercise faith in the power of the Spirit. Hence, authentic “[c]hristian faith and life are inseparable from reliable knowledge of the character and purpose of God”[1].

However, “for eschatological reasons, we may wish to hold that because all our knowledge is provisional there are necessary limits to its completeness”[2]. Christians look forward to the coming revelation in the appearance of Christ in the parousia (1 Cor 1:7, Col 3:4). At that time, what is unknown shall be made fully known, and the person and nature of the triune God will be explored and enjoyed by humanity for all eternity.

[1] Migliore, Faith Seeking Understanding, 23.

[2] Gunton, “Historical and systematic theology”, 12.

Bibliography

2006-04-18T18:59:00.000+10:00

Anonymous, “Sources for Theology”. Retrieved on March 16^th 2006 from http://digitalstudio.calvin.edu/rel131/help/hques1.htm

Bowald, Mark A. “Grace”. In Dictionary for Theological Interpretation of the Bible. Edited by Kevin J. Vanhoozer. Michigan: Baker Academic, 2005.

Calvin, John. Institutes of the Christian Religion. Translated by H. Beveridge. Michigan: Eerdmans, 1989.

Gunton, Colin. “Historical and systematic theology”. In The Cambridge Companion to Christian Doctrine. Edited by Colin Gunton. Cambridge: CUP, 1997.

Knapp, Henry M. “Protestant Biblical Interpretation”. In Dictionary for Theological Interpretation of the Bible. Edited by Kevin J. Vanhoozer. Michigan: Baker Academic, 2005.

Lane, Anthony N. S. “Tradition”. In Dictionary for Theological Interpretation of the Bible. Edited by Kevin J. Vanhoozer. Michigan: Baker Academic, 2005.

Loughlin, Gerard. “The basis and authority of doctrine”. In The Cambridge Companion to Christian Doctrine. Edited by Colin Gunton. Cambridge: CUP, 1997.

McGrath, Alister E. Christian Theology: An Introduction. Victoria: Blackwell, 2001.

Migliore, Daniel. Faith Seeking Understanding: An Introduction to Christian Theology Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1991.

Packer, James I. “Scripture”. In New Dictionary of Theology. Edited by Sinclair B. Ferguson and David F. Wright. Illinois: IVP, 1988.

Pinnock, Clark. “Revelation”. In New Dictionary of Theology. Edited by Sinclair B. Ferguson and David F. Wright. Illinois: IVP, 1988.

Stroup, George. “Revelation”. In Christian Theology: An Introduction to Its Traditions and Tasks 2^nd rev. edn. Edited by Peter C. Hodgson and Robert H. King. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1985.

Williams, Stephen N. “Revelation”. In Dictionary for Theological Interpretation of the Bible. Edited by Kevin J. Vanhoozer. Michigan: Baker Academic, 2005.

More on the 'liberated' Christian peacemaker teams

2006-03-30T09:21:00.000+10:00

The 'liberated' Christian Peacemaker Team memebrs who have recently been freed from captivity by British troops (possibly SAS) in a joint US-British operation have been doing a little hiding of their own. One of the members was back in the closet while under the barrel of an AK-47. The problem arises when the mix of Christianity, gay activism and left-wing politics is mixed in with terrorists, the War in Iraq and American as the Great Satan. A heady brew indeed, which exemplifies the falacy of mixing left-wing libertarian politics with Christianity. It makes a mockery of "Live such good lives among the nations that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us." 1 Peter 2:12. In other words, the efforts of the CPT are not worth a pinch of cold water.

As Canadian columnist Charles Adler notes:

The Christian Peacemaker Team members have been called misguided and naive. But it's clear from here that Jim Loney is only selectively naive. He could not afford to talk about his [gay] partner while in captivity and didn't.

Homosexuality in Saddam Hussein's Iraq was punishable by death. Amnesty International says the current status of gay and lesbian rights is unclear. But here are few things that are crystal clear.
1) Jim Loney only feels free to speak his mind about his sexual orientation in a country with a government that protects gay rights.
2) Christian Peacemakers claim to have gone to Iraq to prevent the coalition forces from carrying out their mission.
3) Had the the Peacemakers succeeded in keeping Saddam Hussein in power, a homosexual in Iraq would have zero hope for having an openly gay life. We know from Loney's statement made here in Canada that even he knows that the threat to gays wasn't coming from Western Imperialism.

Best of the Web Today - March 23, 2006

2006-03-24T08:42:00.000+10:00

Some good news from Iraq: "U.S. and British forces freed one Briton and two Canadians early Thursday in a military operation, ending a four-month hostage drama in which an American among the group was shot to death and dumped on a Baghdad street earlier this month," the Associated Press reports. The ex-hostages belong to the Christian Peacemaker Teams, a group that--well, let's let the CPT explain for itself in a statement issued today:

[The ex-hostages] were in Iraq to learn of the struggles facing the
people in that country. They went, motivated by a passion for justice and peace
to live out a nonviolent alternative in a nation wracked by armed conflict. They
knew that their only protection was in the power of the love of God and of their
Iraqi and international co-workers. We believe that the illegal occupation of
Iraq by Multinational Forces is the root cause of the insecurity which led to
this kidnapping and so much pain and suffering in Iraq. The occupation must
end.

Today, in the face of this joyful news, our faith compels us to
love our enemies even when they have committed acts which caused great hardship
to our friends and sorrow to their families. . . .
We pray that
Christians throughout the world will, in the same spirit, call for justice and
for respect for the human rights of the thousands of Iraqis who are being
detained illegally by the U.S. and British forces occupying Iraq. During these
past months, we have tasted of the pain that has been the daily bread of
hundreds of thousands of Iraqis. Why have our loved ones been taken? Where are
they being held? Under what conditions? How are they? Will they be released?
When?

It's not clear whom the CPT statement means by "our enemies." But
the only enemy they seem to recognize is the U.S. and its allies, whose
"occupation" of Iraq is the "root cause" of the ex-hostages' captivity, and
whose detention of "thousands of Iraqis" they liken to their own kidnapping and
(in one case) murder by terrorists.

But if the CPT is going to "love our enemies," the least it could
do is thank them. The statement does not acknowledge that the hostages were
rescued by U.S. and British servicemen, or indeed that they were rescued at all;
it refers mysteriously to their having been "released," as if the kidnappers
themselves had decided to let them go.

This seems to run deeper than a case of simple ingratitude. There is a whole strange worldview at work here--a theology, if you will. We don't claim to understand it fully, but it seems to equate America as the root of all evil and America's adversaries as Edenic creatures--innocents who know not good or evil and thus bear no culpability for their bad actions.

If we have this right, it follows that the CPT Christians see themselves, by virtue of their faith, as being forgiven for being American, or for being from another nation that America has corrupted. This is why they cannot be grateful to, or forgiving of, America: For them that would amount to thanking or forgiving sin itself.

What would we do without studies (1)

2006-03-20T10:18:00.000+10:00

MORE than one in three Australians admit to knowing nothing about Islam and its followers, a study has found.

When people were asked to demonstrate what they did know, the proportion that revealed complete ignorance of the practices and beliefs of Muslims was even higher.

The findings are from a study carried out by Kevin Dunn, a geographer at the University of NSW, published today in Studia Islamika, the Indonesian journal for Islamic studies.
Understanding of the religion was so poor among some of the 1311 people surveyed that one person claimed Muslims believed in Buddha.

More

ONE person's inane comment does not equate to "poor understanding". However, what of the ignorance of Australians when it comes to Christianity? Unless Aussies are asked how Ricky Ponting is doing in the Cricket, or the chances of next Sunday's line up of their favourite football team (of whatever code) in an upcoming match, "studies" will always find ignorance heaped upon ignorance.

It's the Australian way.

Yet education does not necessarily lead to breaking down the barriers of prejudice. I'm sure every Sunni knows what the Shi'as are up to, and Hindus in India now what their northern neighbours profess, and every Tel Aviv schoolboy could tell you of the daily religious habits of the Palestinians down the road. Yet this doesn't make anyone more "open minded" "tolerant" or "accepting". It just might provide the tools to fuel the fires of hatred.

Give me the old Aussie head stuck in the sand attitude anyday. She'll be right, mate!

Dumb and Dumberer (Part 2)

2006-03-09T06:53:00.000+10:00

[Update] This is a follow-up to a previous post Dumb and Dumberer. The similarities are that both the intiators of these grandiose schemes are female lefties. Is an ideological debate brewing that pits socialist-leaning women against conservative men? Perhaps it has already happened. Witness the RU486 debate, and the gender split on the conscience vote. maybe not so dumb and dumberer after all, but a concerted, systematic attack on Christianity with women parliamentarians in the front lines.

From the SMH.

Dumb and Dumberer (Part 2)
The Greens and the Democrats are at it again. This strikes me as a similar "politically correct effort" to attempts to produce gender inclusive language, but with a more Orwellian focus - eliminate all references to a despised group (from the Greens and Dems POV) by closing down their discourse. Cut off their 'power' and the Church, like the lefties' favourite arguments about the state, will 'wither away'.

And while Lyn Allison is at it, let's also scrap kickbacks, donations, funds and allocations of public money to political parties.

I wonder who will 'wither way' first?

This is simple confusion on behalf of the Greens and Democrats. Long may they writhe in minor-party obscurity.

PM wants to retain parliamentary prayers

2 March 2006

Prime Minister John Howard has dismissed as absurd a bid by minor parties to have prayers dropped from parliamentary proceedings.

The Australian Democrats and Australian Greens have attempted to abolish the official prayers which open every day of parliament.

Democrats leader Lyn Allison also wants religious references removed from statutory oaths and pledges and tax breaks for religious groups scrapped.

The Senate on Wednesday voted down her plan by 50 votes to seven.

Mr Howard said it had been based on a completely misguided understanding of the separation of church and state.

"What the separation of church and state means in this country is that there is no established church," Mr Howard told reporters.

"We don't have the ... Anglican Church as the official state religion, that's what it means.

"It doesn't mean that we abandon our Judeo-Christian heritage, it doesn't mean that we eliminate public ... references.

"I think it's an absurd proposition which shows a total misunderstanding of the nature of the separation of church and state."

Inner feminist? Inner Contradiction

2006-03-02T08:22:00.000+10:00

Suddenly, our PM finds his inner feminist

Another Julia Baird article from the SMH, this time, taking the PM to task for his reamrks about "women of cover" (weaers of the hijab and the burqa) whom the PM finds "confronting".

The article presupposes that not only is the Pm taking a cheap opportunistic shot, but also that his comments are not as valid as a woman, or a Muslim woman, because he is a white, Christian male. While asserting:

"It is right to be proud of the equality of women in Western culture. It is also right to respect diversity - and faith - in a secular state."

she goes on to say...

"I'm not saying there is no validity to Howard's comments. There are aspects of the treatment of women in Muslim culture that are being vigorously debated by feminists, and women of that faith, with good reason. But it is their debate, and any change must be led by them, with arguments of reason, theology and equity, not those of judgement or disdain.

It's not as though the Christian religion is entirely sound - the Catholic Church and some parts of the Anglican Church still refuse to ordain women as priests, let alone bishops, and many prevent them from preaching or speaking at all. This is the religion of many of our leaders, and yet this is a subject on which they remain strangely mute."

Howard obviously does not the right to speak with authority on this issue because his own house is not in order. Will anyone be able to speak with authority on any matter on these grounds? It seems you either have to have no relationshio with the subject at all in order to be free of moral taint- but unfortunately this makes you less than authoritative. Or you are deeply concerned about the issue because it parallels your own concerns - but as you are not without sin, you are not free to cast any stones.

The only ones with legitimacy to comment on their own "oppression" seem to be the victims of same - and these are the least likely to be in any position to do so.

Recipe bringing youth back to church

2006-02-28T14:02:00.000+10:00

More from the SMH - - their obession with the megachurch movement is only rivalled by the constant monitoring of the Sydney Anglicans. Quite an interesting news angle considering The Courier-Mail (going Tabloid in March) almost wholly fails to cover any religious issues at all (though this is not too much of a disappointment cosidering their latest leading articles is that the Federal government is - shock! horror! taxing superannuation! Stop Press!). Anyway, back to the gushy, capitalist, anti-intellectual megachurches:

Quote:

Populist forms are often derided by the elites found in theological faculties of mainstream seminaries, and by Samuel Kobia. Populist forms these days tend to be more energetic in worship style, using more modern music and advanced electronic media presentations. This is more in keeping with the trend away from reason-based and cerebral forms of Christianity focused on logically crafted sermons to more experiential and charismatic forms. No Bach cantatas, Bruckner motets or hymns more ancient than modern will be found here.

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RU486 debate

2006-02-14T20:23:00.000+10:00

. .. copied from http://www.matthiasmedia.com

RU486 debate

10 February 2006 AD

I couldn’t help noticing one of the interesting arguments being used by some of the (particularly female) members of the Australian Parliament in relation to the RU486 legal debate (Here’s one report about the current debate).

To paraphrase, I heard it said a number of times that “Male politicians should trust women to make thoughtful ethical decisions about their own bodies, and should not try to impose their male/chauvenistic/catholic/religious ethical views.”

This is, on the one hand, a very clever tactical argument. What man is going to counter that argument by saying, “No, actually we can’t trust women to do that!”? You’d have to be a very brave or a very stupid male (indeed, being both would be a distinct advantage).

But, on the other hand, it is a fundamentally silly argument that clearly attempts to avoid the main question.

For example, do we trust men to “make thoughtful ethical decisions about their own bodies”? Or do we outlaw rape and carnal knowledge?

“But hang on, that’s different! In that case you’re talking about men hurting another person! We’re not talking about a situation like that … “

Ah, now we’re getting closer to the real question.

Noticed by Ian at 10:53 AM

Which way will they jump?

2006-02-14T20:20:00.000+10:00

... copied from Matthias Media

Which way will they jump?

7 February 2006 AD

The affair of the Danish cartoons has not only again exposed the fragility of relations between the West and Islam; it has also laid bare the West’s own double mind on how to relate to Islam. (See the cartoons in question.)

The controversy is really a clash between two sacred modern values: freedom of expression, and religious tolerance. And it is has been interesting to play ‘which way will they jump’ as different media commentators line up to have their say. Leading Australian cartoonist Bruce Petty was on the radio this morning, and as he was being introduced I thought to myself, “Which way will he jump? Probably on the publish-and-be-damned side.” But no. Petty thought there were limits, and that it was wrong needlessly to offend people. He was pleased that Australian newspapers had decided not to publish the cartoons.

As Christians, we also have conflicting thoughts on the issue. On one hand, we can understand the Muslims’ pain. We know what it is like to be sneered at and mocked, and to have our Saviour caricatured and ridiculed. It hurts. Some of us may have been among the protesters outside Life of Brian or The Last Temptation of Christ. As Ian pointed out in his post yesterday, while we value free and open debate on all subjects, we would prefer the discussion to be loving and respectful. Misrepresentation and insult hardly advance understanding.

On the other hand, Ian’s quote from Islam in our Backyard also shows why Christians might also support the cartoonists. If we support free and open public argument about religious belief, it is very difficult to proscribe the form in which the argument takes place. A cartoon is an argument, stated in the extreme. Like all arguments, it may be false, but it is a legitimate and often effective form of communication. Sometimes the best way to oppose an idea is simply to point out how absurd it is (as Isaiah does in his bitingly satirical portrait of the stupidity of idol worship in Isaiah 45). And this is what cartoons do best.

Newspapers must be quite free to publish cartoons challenging the absurdites of Islam, just as they must be (and are!) free to publish cartoons satirising the absurdities of Jews, Christians, atheists, right-wing politicians, left-wing politicians, and everyone else besides. The decision as to whether to publish them must be an editorial one, according to what the paper wants to say.

There is a further question. Granted that the Danish paper was exercising a perfectly legitimate right to publish the original cartoons, should other papers now also publish them, thus maximising the offence to Muslims everywhere? If we acknowledge that the papers ought to be free, in principle, to do so, should they use their freedom in this instance to publish? Or should they, for the sake of Muslim sensibilities and public order, decline from publishing?

It sounds to me rather like the situation that confronted the Apostle Paul with respect to circumcising his Gentile proteges. He was quite free to have them circumcised or to not have them circumcised. And indeed he did have Timothy ‘done’ (in Acts 16) for the sake of not offending the Jews among whom he was hoping to minister. However, in Galatians 2, Paul takes the uncircumcised Titus with him to Jerusalem, and “does not yield in submission even for a moment” to those false legalistic brothers who were apparently insisting on Titus being circumcised. Circumcision is neither here nor there—that is, until someone attempts to compel circumcision.

Considering the cartoons purely on their merits, I doubt whether many Western mainstream newspapers would have published them. Their editiorial decision would probably have been No. But as soon as pressure is placed upon them not to publish, regardless of artistic or editorial merit, then they can hardly be blamed for asserting their freedom, as the Apostle Paul did. “We wouldn’t have bothered publishing these cartoons — until you told us that we MUST NOT publish them. Now, we must.”

So which way will I jump?

As I argued in Islam in our Backyard, our society needs a great deal more vigorous, open, public debate about religious truth claims—including those made by Islam. I think we need to go a lot further than the publishing of a few rather lame cartoons. Islam is essentially a Judaeo-Christian heresy cult that has grown very big and very old, and that now enslaves more than a billion people in spiritual darkness. Out of love for Muslims, and everyone, we should refute it with all our energy. We need to do much more than caricature Mohammed. We need to show why he was a false prophet, whose revelations did not come from the true and living God.

Noticed by Tony at 11:55 AM

...peace be upon her

2006-02-10T20:40:00.000+10:00

A reprint of a Washington Times article from the Age. Noted author of www.muslim-refusnik.com is, to paraphrase the Wesleyan quadrilateral, a Secularist, not a Sunni, a Shi'a or a Sufi. And a woman.

Lighten up, fellow Muslims

Date: February 8 2006

Islam can take a joke, even a bad one, at the prophet's expense, writes Irrshad Manji.

At the World Economic Forum last month, I observed something revealing. In a session about the US religious right, a cartoonist satirised one of America's most influential Christian ministers, Pat Robertson. In the audience, chuckling with the rest of us, was a prominent British Muslim. But his smile disappeared the moment we were shown a cartoon that made fun of Muslim clerics.

... more

Anglican Church's only obsession is with Christ

2006-02-06T21:50:00.000+10:00

From today's (Feb 6) Letters page at the SMH:

Anglican Church's only obsession is with Christ

February 6, 2006

I am greatly puzzled by James Pilkington's claim that Archbishop Peter Jensen and the Anglican Church are obsessed with such issues as homosexuality, swearing, drinking, and the like (Letters, February 4-5).

I have been a regular member of an Anglican congregation for more than 14 years. On Saturday I was ordained as a deacon in the diocese of Sydney. In my discussions with Dr Jensen and, indeed, with many of the men and women serving in Anglican congregations, I see people who are obsessed with promoting Jesus Christ. I read the diocesan mission statement, framed under Dr Jensen's leadership and embraced by virtually every Anglican church in the Sydney diocese, and find that churches are aiming to glorify God by proclaiming our Saviour the Lord Jesus Christ. I see no reference to homosexuality, swearing, drinking or any other issues mentioned by Mr Pilkington.

In the recent Boyer Lectures given by Dr Jensen, he took neither homosexuality nor premarital sex as his theme. Rather, I heard him talking quite plainly about Jesus.

So how does Mr Pilkington find Dr Jensen and others obsessing about these other matters? Could it be that the media, social commentators and certain lobbyists are the obsessed? It seems to me that many speak from a distinct lack of familiarity with both Dr Jensen and the Anglican Church in Sydney.

Is it any wonder, then, that many will prejudge him and other Anglican Christians without taking a closer look?

Do Dr Jensen and the Anglican Church have the opposite concerns of Jesus?

On Saturday, 51 people were ordained or commissioned to promote Jesus Christ in Sydney. Most of them have left their jobs and lucrative careers to do so. Some of them have faced great opposition from family. Some have come to Australia as refugees and been welcomed by the diocese. Some of them are serving in multi-ethnic congregations, filled with foreigners who are overjoyed to be in church. Some are serving among the disadvantaged and economically challenged. And this is not to mention the hundreds of other clergy in the diocese engaged in these same activities and more. And they are all concerned to promote Jesus Christ.

Are Anglicans obsessed with petty issues? For heaven's sake, just take a look and see.

Reverend Dr George Athas Newtown

Twisting Jesus' obsessions out of the Bible

2006-02-06T21:47:00.000+10:00

The letter that inspired the response above:

Twisting Jesus' obsessions out of the Bible

February 4, 2006

The Anglican Archbishop of Sydney, Dr Peter Jensen, appears in the Herald defending the Anglican Church's obsession with homosexuality ("Jensen condemns sin of homosexual acts", February 3). It is the biggest issue in a list of church obsessions, including not having sex before marriage, not drinking or swearing, the importance of getting married, having children and working hard in your job.

What's funny, though, is that Jesus' obsessions and Jensen's obsessions are totally different. Jesus either never talks about these issues, or else contradicts the church's stance. He doesn't talk about gay people or not having sex before marriage (which isn't mentioned anywhere in the Bible), or not drinking or swearing.

Rather than affirming families, he ignores his own and says his coming will bring division among families. Rather than saying work hard, he calls people to leave their job, or to stop aspects of their job which reinforce their unjust economy.

He instead has this crazy obsession with helping the poor, the hungry, the sick and the needy. His instructions to his followers were not the long list of "don'ts" that Jensen and the like throw at us, but "do's" - to spend our lives helping those in need.

Most relevant for gay people, he spends a lot of time including those who today's religious establishment exclude, such as disabled people and foreigners. In an interesting parallel, Jesus constantly criticises those in charge who exclude them. It's easy to see who his criticism would be levelled at today.

It's interesting that when I talk to homeless people in the shelter where I work voluntarily, the only church they have felt welcomed in is the Metropolitan Community Church, Sydney's "gay church".

Jensen and his allies use one passage, not even said by Jesus, about pagan fertility orgy cults, to oppress, judge and exclude gay people.

Rather than obsessing about homosexuality, I want to see a church obsessed by what Jesus was obsessed about. We live in a world in which billions of people contend with extreme poverty, famine and disease while we Christians ignore their needs and instead obsess about how much we swear or how we can twist the Bible to justify our own bigotry.

James Pilkington Maroubra

Jensen condemns sin of homosexual acts

2006-02-06T21:45:00.000+10:00

The article that kickstarted the current round of debate:

Jensen condemns sin of homosexual acts

By Linda Morris Religious Affairs Reporter
February 3, 2006

THE Archbishop of Sydney, Dr Peter Jensen, has called on the Anglican Church to declare homosexual practices a sin, defending the church's "obsession" with human sexuality.

He joined fellow evangelicals in criticising English laws recognising civil partnerships as unbiblical.

Disputes over homosexuality - including gay priests and gay marriage - have racked the church worldwide. As head of the conservative Sydney diocese, Dr Jensen has emerged as a leader of the evangelical section of the world's 78 million Anglicans.

Dr Jensen said the church was on a slippery slope if it was to weaken on the definitions of sin, and risked compromising the central message of Christianity, that of redemption from sin through Christ.

"… our culture is obsessed with sex so we should not be embarrassed with engaging with this issue. If we did not engage we would be divorced from our culture. Scripture declares this to be a matter of life and death."

His comments are drawn from notes published on the website of Anglican Mainstream, a group of conservatives said to represent 1500 Anglican archbishops, bishops, clergy and laity in several countries. They form the basis of a speech Dr Jensen gave to an informal gathering in England last month.

Dr Jensen said acceptance of homosexual practice "would be to call holy what God calls sin to be repented from".

The efforts of liberal theology to gain control of the church had gone too far and was endangering the "whole gospel enterprise of the church", he said.

Dr Jensen co-signed a letter with 18 prominent evangelical Anglican leaders "warmly" supporting the criticisms of the Bishop of Rochester, the Right Reverend Michael Nazir-Ali, that gay unions were inconsistent with traditional teaching on marriage.

Current Reading

2005-12-19T22:41:00.000+10:00

I will endeavour to reflect on these two items shortly...

1. Jonathon Edwards' Resolutions, after coming across this one in an e-mail signature:

"Resolved, never to give over, nor in the least to slacken, my fight with my corruptions, however unsuccessful I may be"
--Jonathan Edwards
Resolutions, 56

Read all 70

2. A Call to Ministry ..from the 9Marks website

The blurb:
“More ministers, and better ministers, are the great want of the church.” So argued Basil Manley over one-hundred years ago, and one might well argue the same thing today. How then should this lack be filled? How can young men recognize God’s call to the ministry? How should pastors today encourage and advise such young men? What is the corporate duty of the local church in raising up solid young pastoral leaders? Click, read and learn (from the past!).

Dumb and dumberer

2005-12-03T08:15:00.000+10:00

My first impression on reading this is that this woman is an idiot, short and simple. This is just easy political point scoring of the lowest order. Defending one group by attacking another. How liberal and democratic of her. No wonder there is such low regard for politicians, real estate agents and clergy with such unqualified opinion coming out so regularly. It recalls to mind Paul Keating, as PM, quoting back to the then opposition leader (Hewson) words which were used to describe the government, "Cheats and liars and scumbags." What has changed?

From The Australian:

Koran 'no match for violent Bible'
Samantha Maiden
29 November 2005

MUSLIM extremists may use the Koran to justify their terror attacks, "but when it comes to good old-fashioned violence, the Judaeo-Christian God is hard to beat".

NSW Labor MP Julia Irwin -- considered a serial offender on religious issues by her own party -- ignited a new controversy yesterday as she described devout Christians as "happy clappers" and said the Bible was more bloodthirsty than the Koran.

Attacking what she claims is a culture of fear faced by Muslims living in Australia, Ms Irwin, a Catholic convert, hit out at the violence of the Old Testament.

Her outburst sparked an immediate rebuke last night from Kim Beazley -- but Ms Irwin refused to back down, arguing she was "speaking the truth".

"Those who refer to Muslim fundamentalists may choose to quote from the Holy Koran and there are passages that might be taken to show a vengeful God," Ms Irwin told federal parliament.

"But when it comes to good old-fashioned violence, the Judaeo-Christian God is hard to beat.

"If I was to take those verses as written, I could easily associate any Christian fundamentalist with a dangerous and extreme mindset. But we are more likely to associate the term Christian fundamentalist with psalm singers and happy clappers."

Quoting from the Old Testament in the Bible, she drew attention to passages from referring to murders, massacres and God ordering Moses to "loot from their houses all their silver and clothing".

"And if that is not enough, the story continues as Moses ... is urged to hack women and children to death, rip unborn babies from their mother's womb and level the cities," she told parliament. "The virgins are taken at God's command for the pleasure of his holy warriors."

Mr Beazley told The Australian Ms Irwin was "trying to take a stand against extremists, which is important".

"That could have been made clearer in the speech," he said. "It is important that we do not lose sight of the positive messages in both religious books -- of respect for one another."

Her speech drew an angry reponse from other Labor MPs although foreign affairs spokesman Kevin Rudd, a committed Christian, said he would not add to Mr Beazley's comments.

Speaking to The Australian last night, Ms Irwin admitted her "happy clapper" gibe might offend some Christians. "I think some would find that offensive but I would encourage them to read my speech," she said.

Church and State: Politicians and Religious folk speak out

2005-11-16T12:14:00.000+10:00

Or rather, it's the annual New College Lectures. The grab from the website:

"The 19th annual New College Lectures ... topic was Church & State: exploring views on the relevance of faith to politics. New College had three lecturers who shared much on this important topic: Mr John Anderson, MP, Mr Kevin Rudd, MP and Dr Andrew Cameron (Moore College) .

There has been much discussion in recent times concerning the role that the Church does and might play in relation to the State. The issue raises many questions:

Should the Church involve itself in government or attempt to influence government policy?
How should people of faith conduct themselves if elected to government?
What part might their faith play in their actions?
Should the role of the Church be restricted to merely commenting on values, moral issues and the like?
If the latter is preferable what might constitute moral issues?
Do 'moral' issues cover matters such as justice for the poor?

Alternatively, are we a secular State, where religion and church have no relevance and should be kept at arms length? "

Download the PDF's:

Separating Australia: Church, State and recent Aussie thought
Transcript of the first New College Lecture given by Rev Dr Andrew Cameron

The role people of Faith can and do have in Politics
Transcript of the second New College Lecture given by The Hon John Anderson MP

Christianity and Politics
Transcript of the third New College Lecture given by Mr Kevin Rudd MP

Making it Work: Proposals for Future Engagement between Church & State
Transcript of the fourth New College Lecture given by Rev Dr Andrew Cameron

Rebel push to control churches

2005-11-15T10:15:00.000+10:00

Rebel push to control churches
Jill Rowbotham, Religious affairs writer
12nov05

DISAFFECTED members of the Uniting Church in Australia will campaign to change state laws so they can keep their churches if they split with the denomination.NSW upper house MP Gordon Moyes, a minister in the church, plans to lodge a private member's bill to amend the state act under which a property trust owns and administers all property on behalf of congregations and community service organisations.

When Methodists, and most Congregationalists and Presbyterians, united in 1977, legislation was enacted in every state and territory.

Dr Moyes said it was never envisaged that they might want their properties back because "it was felt the proposed basis of union for the Uniting Church would be adhered to and there would never be dissatisfaction".

"When the Uniting Church came into being the courts decided that certain churches, schools and hospitals should either belong to the new Uniting Church or one of the continuing churches," he said. "Now a quarter of a century has passed that needs to be reviewed."

He proposes that if two-thirds of a congregation votes to leave the denomination, it should be allocated resources that might include the building in which it worships.

The move - led by the Evangelical Members of the Uniting Church and the Reforming Alliance within the Uniting Church, who are encouraging members to lobby MPs to support the bill - was prompted by dissatisfaction with responses from the church's leadership on the issue.

"Thousands, and perhaps tens of thousands, of the membership have left the church, dissatisfied with the moral and theological stance of the current leadership," Dr Moyes claimed. "If churches, schools or hospitals want to disaffiliate that should be possible."

He said it was a matter of justice that congregations that had built and paid for their properties should be able to have the titles restored to them if they left the church.

Uniting Church general secretary Terence Corkin said the church opposed the legislation, describing it as "neither helpful, nor necessary".

"The Uniting Church is not a company with shareholders, where if people want out they can sell up their share and cash it in," he said.

"The church is a community of people who are caretakers for the resources of that church over hundreds of years and we together hold that property to use it and redeploy it over a long period of time."

Mr Corkin said he thought that in many of the congregations the funds of the wider church had helped build the properties and establish the churches.

"Where's the justice in some people who do not happen to like a decision of the moment taking the asset for themselves and going their own way?" he asked.

Ordination of openly homosexual clergy is a source of division in the church but, according to Dr Moyes, a critic of the current leadership, there is also disagreement about theological education, the relative importance of evangelism and the church's general mission.

About 1.2 million Australians identify with the church, which has 250,000 regular parishioners.

© The Australian

2005 Boyer Lectures by Dr Peter Jensen

2005-11-08T10:52:00.000+10:00

The Boyer Lectures have been delivered by prominent Australians, selected by the ABC Board, for over 40 years. They have stimulated thought, discussion and debate in Australia on a wide range of subjects. The lectures showcase great minds examining key issues and values.

2005 Boyer Lectures by Dr Peter Jensen
Sundays at 5pm, from 13 November 2005, repeated Tuesdays at 1pm (4pm in WA)

Jesus is more important to the Australian values of 'a fair go' and 'mateship' than the stories of the Eureka Stockade and Gallipoli; in forgetting him, as Australians we risk losing our core values now and in the future, warns Anglican Archbishop of Sydney Dr Peter Jensen in his 2005 Boyer Lectures, The Future of Jesus, beginning Sunday, 13 November.

'I want to provoke a national debate with the Jesus of the Gospels,' says Dr Jensen in his introduction. He aims to inspire widespread adult reading of the Gospels and recognition of the significance of Jesus for a modern world in which religion is increasingly on the agenda.

In six weekly lectures broadcast on ABC Radio National, Dr Jensen brings more than 40 years of theological experience to a detailed examination of the history, parables, miracles and promises of Jesus. He states that biblical stories are more important than ever in a modern world increasingly focused on individualism and its associated 'freedoms'.

Dr Jensen calls on both major political parties to look carefully at their notions of contemporary liberalism and to re-examine their parties' origins, values and the freedoms they advocate in the context of the changing society. 'Can we trust each other to use our freedom well? Will my freedom to bargain be at the expense of your ability to look after your family?'

To demonstrate the contemporary power of Jesus Dr Jensen also examines martyrdom as a contemporary and ancient phenomenon, and looks at the influence on American foreign policy of the belief of the millions who think that the second coming of Jesus is imminent.

Dr Jensen has been Archbishop of Sydney, the largest Diocese in the country, since 2001 and is Chair of the General Synod Doctrine Commission. He has written a number of books including The Quest For Power, At the Heart the Universe and The Revelation of God and in June this year presented the inaugural TC Hammond Lectures in Ireland.

Value systems at heart of union movement

2005-11-04T12:25:00.000+10:00

Another (and much better) rejoinder to the anti-Christian sentiment in the announcement of Prof. Ian Harper's appointment as fair Pay Commissar (sorry - Commissioner) by Ruth Limkin in The Courier-Mail - who ably points out the historical legacy of Christinaity and Unionism. Alas and alack, the real history of Christian engagemnet in socoety gets forgotten time and time again (or is it suppressed?) to support alternative theories of how we got to where we are today. Or maybe people are just extraordinarlity self-absorbed and short sighted.

______________________________________________________

When union leaders criticised the new Fair Pay Commissioner for his values, they forgot unionism has a Christian heritage, writes Ruth Limkin.

In the midst of the raging debate about the industrial relations legislation, finally something has given us some light relief.

I have watched with great interest, and more than a little amusement, the response to comments made by the head of the new Fair Pay Commission, Professor Ian Harper.
Many of them are, (unwittingly I suspect), laced with a refreshing irony. With so much of the IR debate a little "same old, same old" it's been a nice change.

In the past week, Harper has been open about the fact he has a personal Christian faith, and has commented that it will guide his decisions. That has been enough to set off the nervous whispers about religion in the corridors of power and the accusations that the Prime Minister is being influenced by fundamentalism.

The responses by the secretary of the Australian Workers Union Queensland, Bill Ludwig, have been interesting.

Ludwig attacked Harper's comments, declaring them as an extraordinary development in 120 years of industrial relations.

That's an interesting perspective. Men of Harper's persuasion founded the trade union movement precisely because they were guided by their personal Christian faith.

Read more

Andrw Bolt's POV

2005-11-04T11:50:00.000+10:00

From the less than left-leaning Herald-Sun's Andrew Bolt:

PROFESSOR Ian Harper has had a brutal lesson in theology from journalists and union leaders: God votes Labor. The rest is blasphemy.Last week Harper, appointed by the Howard Government to head its new Fair Pay Commission, declared he'd be guided in setting minimum wages by his Christian faith.

"I believe in God and I believe that God's will is important to be done in the world," he told the Australian Christian Lobby.

"It means I hold very dear to the values of fairness, justice, honesty, integrity in the process that I'll use to be making a decision with my fellow commissioners."

Uh, oh. He'd instantly become a laughing stock.

Typical of the mockers was the Australian Workers Union's Queensland secretary -- and Labor power broker -- Bill Ludwig, who attacked the comments of the conservative Harper as "extraordinary".

They showed that Prime Minister John Howard was getting too close to the devout politics of US President George W. Bush, Ludwig claimed, adding: "I hate to think our PM is influenced by fundamentalism."

Strong stuff. But sad, that a man who says his faith preaches fairness, justice and honesty is dismissed as sinister. A fundamentalist.

...more

Faith, a driving force in public duties

2005-11-02T10:05:00.000+10:00

...or so went the title to my letter which was published, with some editing, in The Courier-Mail on Melbourne Cup Day (1 November 2005):

The kind of statements that Fair Pay Commission head Ian Harper is
making obviously alarms the secular media (Editorial, Oct 31). It is not used to Christianity taking a front row seat in day-to-day Australian political life, apart from the token Lord's Prayer to open Parliament.

Journalists like the rest of us, need to get with the times. Our Head of State is not only the Queen of Australia but also the head of the Church of England, a cementing of the Church / State relationship that happened half a millenia ago. Where is the problem with Harper "coming out" about his faith? Surely this reflects the wonderful diversity within Australian society. And if he wants to pray to one god, several or none at all, why isn't that diversity celebrated? Why the attempt to seal off his private life from his public duties? Surely one informs the other.

It is not for nothing that Australians call those holding public office to higher personal standards than the general community. Surely as one of the few bastions of freedom and openess remaining in our society, The Courier-Mail should be supporting public's has right to know what informs the decisions made by those who influence their lives?

What is needed is more of the kind of interviews done in the ABC's Compass program "What Our Leaders Believe" - an open and honest investigation of the internal driving forces of many of our nations leaders.

And the Courier-Mail's response...

2005-10-31T13:47:00.000+10:00

[Letter sent to The Courier-Mail, 2:15pm 31 October 2005]

The kind of statements that Professor Ian Harper is making obviously alarms the secular media. They are not used to Christianity taking a front row seat in day-to-day Australian political life, apart from the token Lord's Prayer which opens Parliament. However, journalists like the rest of us need to get with the times, and should recall that our Head of State is not only the Queen of Australia but also the Head of the Church of England, a cementing of the Church / State relationship that happened almost half a millenia ago.

Where is the problem is Prof Harper "coming out" about his faith? Surely this reflects the wonderful diversity within Australian society. And if he wants to pray to one, all or no gods, why isn't that diversity tolerated, appreciated and celebrated? Why the attempt to seal off his private life from his public duties? Surely one informs the other.

It is not for nothing that Australians call those holding public office to higher personal standards than the great unwashed community - witness Democrats senator Andrew Bartlett's fall from grace over drinking (never a journalist's vice! Never!) or NSW Opposition leader Andrew Brogdon's calamity over "mail order bride" comments and advances to female journalists (was he mad?). And of course, public opionion of journalists has never been higher.

Surely as one of the few bastions of freedom and openess remaining in our society, The Courier-Mail should be supporting the Australian public's has right to know what is informing the decisions made by those who influence their lives - to have less is to demean not only the intelligence but also the political power of those who might be ignorant of the full facts.

What is needed is more of the kind of interviews done on, of all things, the ABC's Compas program "What Our Leaders Believe" - an open and honest investigation of the internal driving forces of many of our nations leaders. What is not needed is an implicit call to return to a secretive, elitist era, characterised by a few quiet drinks in sumptuous surrounding among those in high places, gently smoothing the pillow of the masses as they get duped yet again by their masters and betters.

IN EXPRESSING the hope that the wages his Fair Pay Commission sets for millions of Australia's lowest-paid workers will be "God's will", the head of that commission, Professor Ian Harper, has imprudently crossed a line that will make many Australians feel uneasy.

Placed in a sensitive position where workers of all faiths and none are relying on his good judgment and fairness, Professor Harper's comments will anger and alienate atheists, agnostics and many others who are grateful that public figures generally do not wear their faith on their sleeves in the same way Americans do.

More sensible is Professor Harper's assurance that his concern for the best interests of the poor and vulnerable, stemming from his Christian faith, will guide his decisions. This outlook should complement his expertise as a professor of the Melbourne Business School as he sets about balancing the issues at stake in setting a minimum wage that is somebody's income and somebody else's cost.

Professor Harper told the Australian Christian Lobby national conference in Canberra that he and his wife and "a very narrow circle of Christian brothers and sisters" are spending a lot of time praying about industrial relations. This is their private business. Professor Harper's public business is to do his job competently in the best interests of all Australians.

In setting about the task, he would do well to remember the advice of Saint Augustine of Hippo (354-430AD): "Pray as though everything depended on God. Work as though everything depended on you."

God's will all in a day's work

2005-10-31T13:39:00.000+10:00

UNION leaders have attacked the man in charge of setting Australia's minimum wage after he suggested "God's will" would influence his decisions.
Professor Ian Harper said God would provide him with a "moral compass" when he deliberated on minimum wage levels.

Professor Harper is the government appointed head of the new Fair Pay Commission, the body with which the Howard Government will replace the Industrial Relations Commission.

Australian Workers Union Queensland secretary Bill Ludwig described his statement as an "extraordinary" development in 120 years of industrial relations.

Professor Harper said on the weekend that as chairman of the commission "I happen to have a personal Christian faith which is alive and I will be using that to guide me in how I read the evidence and how I vote around the commission table".

More

Caught in the soggy embrace of the Uniting Church

2005-10-28T21:58:00.000+10:00

From The Australian... couldn't have put it better myself (or could I? Hmmmm!)

Caught in the soggy embrace of the Uniting Church

October 27, 2005

IT is called the kumbaya effect, the frightening phenomenon when a religious service starts to look like an Australian Democrats branch meeting. And it is happening to the Uniting Church, which has anew liturgical handbook that puts the k intokumbaya.

If this volume were any wetter it would need to be printed with waterproof ink. As it is, the pages emit an aroma of brown rice and patchouli oil.

Anybody interested in old-time religion - the ancient language of the King James Bible, details of damnation, that sort of thing - will be disappointed in the Uniting Church effort. Instead of divine wrath and resignation to the rule of an inscrutable deity, there is caring, sharing and empathy by the acre.

Regretful the family dog died? The Uniting Church has a prayer just for you. Want to get the bathroom blessed? Just turn to page 514.

There are also words of comfort for people unsettled by industrial action.

Perhaps because the church now appears to be the Democrats at prayer, there are inevitable calls for - you guessed it - social justice and world peace.

And ensuring there is a service for all seasons, there is also one for people getting divorced. When and where to hold it, and who to invite, should give the unhappy couple all sorts of extra issues to argue about.

Perhaps to avoid a demarcation dispute with the Family Court, there is a note reminding clergy that it "is not intended to enact the ending of a marriage".

Not only is the church hip to the issues of the hour, it uses language and examples familiar to all Australians, at least those who listen to a lot of Radio National.

Like the prayer that hopes God will guide "people in positions of power in government and business" "so all may live in peace and justice". The author obviously has not listened to question time lately or entirely got their head around capitalism.

And for congregants who have trouble with abstract ideas there are some spectacular, simplistic examples of spiritual need. Such as: "O God, we gather at your waters, as a hot and bothered crowd gathers at the beach on a sweltering, summer day." And maintaining the metaphor: "O God, we drink at your fountain, as a parched dog laps at the fresh, running water of a bush creek."

Thanks are also offered for budgerigars, bananas and that staple of the Protestant tradition, the mango.

All of this is fine for those who like local colour in their religion and want a prayer for the tool shed. But it is not all happy, clappy religion. The long list of topics for intercessory prayer includes "those who work for the preservation of natural resources and the environment", not to mention transgendered persons as well as "those who are addicted to drugs" and are "involved in vice and organised crime". There is also a suggestion for prayers for people who are probably beyond help, "all who work in the media and public communications".

Cynics may say this sort of religious expression is custom created to make hippies happy. But it seems this sort of thing has been around for quite a while.

In her recent book on why John Howard is very bad, God Under Howard, Marion Maddox says in the 1950s, when the Prime Minister was a Methodist, one of the predecessors of the Uniting Church, there was a lot of what is now called social justice spouted. Of course, it was nothing like now, when congregations are united in niceness.

But the Uniting Church can still do more if it really wants to be relevant. Where are the prayers for people whose investment property has declined in value? And statements of comfort for parishioners whose grandchildren just missed out on the HSC mark to make it into medicine? Nor does the church apologise anywhere near enough for the way Australian consumerism, code for people buying big houses, causes world poverty.

It is time the church stopped mucking about and really spoke out against evil. After all, what sort of committed congregation does not have a service of exorcism for families where somebody votes Liberal?

Smash the Howard Government's IR reforms!

2005-10-24T13:51:00.000+10:00

From Green Left Weakly

What do conservative church leaders, a couple of neoliberal economics editors and Green Left Weekly have in common? Warning against the disastrous effect of the federal Coalition government’s new industrial relations agenda, misnamed WorkChoices, on working people’s lives.

Archbishops George Pell and Philip Jensen, the Sydney Morning Herald’s economic editor Ross Gittins and many others have joined trade unionists in criticising PM John Howard’s plans to erode our weekends, remove penalty rates and rely on workers’ ability to “bargain” individually with their bosses for decent pay and conditions. Individual workplace agreements (AWAs) are being presented as a choice: they are nothing of the sort.

More

Interesting reading, for its polemical style if nothing else. For example,

They...	We...
"attack"	"combat"
"smash"	"build"
have a "disastrous agenda"	"criticise" and "warn"
have "draconian laws"	seek "decent pay and conditions"
"erode"	have "growing organisation"
are "anti-union"	are "union and (wider) community"
"shift the balance of power"	"protest"

along with the old favourites...

They...	We...
have "profit"	have "wages"
are "bosses"	are "workers"
are "employers"	are [still] "workers"

There's a big ACTU sponsored rally on November 15.

Blogging – meant for ministry

2005-10-24T10:20:00.000+10:00

From Christian Computing magazine...

Music & Multimedia
by Terry Wilhite

Blogging is the newest Internet craze, right up there with Podcasting. Blogging is Internet-based journaling that can be seen by a world wide audience and while not invented specifically for pastors, small group leaders or student ministers, it is one of the best communication forums I’ve seen in a long time for church leaders. Blogging allows you to do daily Internet journal entries and have the software automatically organize those comments in chronological order. Depending upon the preferences you establish, you can archive your entries by month or year so that your audience can easily retrieve past blogs.

Download the PDF here

Anti-terror laws put Australia on a dangerous path

2005-10-20T15:21:00.000+10:00

Just waiting for the ABC to pick up what the Sydney Anglicans think about this...

The Federal Government's anti-terror legislation puts Australia on a dangerous path according to the Uniting Church President, the Reverend Dr. Dean Drayton.

"While every Government has a responsibility to protect itscitizens, these new laws send a clear message that the only way to do this is to erode people's rights. They have the potential to create an atmosphere of fear and distrust in Australia.

"We are concerned the Government has failed to allow adequate time for public discussion and debate about the proposed laws. It is unacceptable that the community is being told to accept measures that radically curtail civil liberties without widespread and substantial consultation."

I doubt if anyone would accept "measures that radically curtail to civil liberties" even with "widespread and substantial consultation", but that's just me. "Widespread and substantial consultation" may be the democratic and the UCA way to go, but that doesn't make it a better way to decide how to help us accept radically curtailed civil liberties.

Lend them a hand

2005-10-18T12:53:00.000+10:00

More church responses on the latest IR proposals (and yes, the Salvation Army is a church, not a charity). I find it amusing to see the ABC seek the opinions of church leaders so earnestly when they are dealing with an issue that ABC policy must direct it to tacitly or overtly oppose.

Listening to ABC's AM program of a morning, there are far more harsh questions, probes and interrogations of Government representatives on this than on issues the ABC is sympathetic to (witness their soft interview of Quensland Premier Peter Beattie over Health a while back).

But now, heres this...

NICK MCKENZIE: But the Government has argued that it is still guaranteeing key conditions, and it's up to the worker, the employee, who can ask for the help of a bargaining agent, to decide if they want to then trade them away when they're signing up to an AWA.

JOHN DALZIEL: Yes, well the Salvation Army deals with people who are desperate. And I can assure you the desperate person will be quite willing to accept the most basic conditions to get their rung on the ladder. It won't matter how good the bargainer is, they'll say look that's all right, this is much better than being long term unemployed, or no other way I'm going to get a job, I'm not bright enough to get through to HSC.

NICK MCKENZIE: The Salvation Army has argued in the past for an ethical approach to boosting employment. Is this reform package ethical?

JOHN DALZIEL: When you look at this reform package from the most disadvantaged in Australia, it is not ethical because it exploits them.

Church / State IR Update

2005-10-15T23:00:00.000+10:00

UPDATE: The UCA point of view available at Journey Online:

Uniting Church leaders today condemned the Government’s proposed industrial relations reforms and the limited safeguards announced yesterday which do little to protect the rights and conditions of Australia’s most vulnerable workers.

Uniting Church President, Reverend Dr. Dean Drayton, said the Government’s ‘WorkChoices’ reform package is more about choice for business than protecting the country’s workers.

“We are not comforted by the very minor safeguards which have been included. The Government is so focussed on the economy as an end in itself that it has lost sight of the real purpose of economic systems. The economy is a tool which should serve the needs of people.

“Workers are not commodities in the service of greater profits – they are people trying to make a decent life for themselves and their families. ‘WorkChoices’ claims it will make our labour market and our economy more competitive - but where does it legislate for cooperation, collaboration and community?”

Spot the differnces between the Angllicans and the Unitings on this one - there aren't many. Two things:

1. The ABC picks up what Peter Jensen, Archbishop of Sydney, has to say, rather that Dean Drayion, National UCA honcho. Reflects the Sydney bias of the ABC? The availability of Peter Jensen? His media approachibility?

2. On this issue the UCA Assembly reps and the Sydney Anglicans agree. So the differences do not lie in the issue of social justice, at least as far as it applies to the labourer and his wages.