60-second adventures in religion

I can’t remember who told me about these, but they’re fab. The Open University Religious Studies is obviously plugging its wares – but fair enough. The results are wonderful and very useable in all kinds of places I suspect – wryly humoured animation with the added bonus is the wonderfully-suited satirical voice of David Mitchell.

I Am The MOST IMPORTANT Person I’ve Ever Met

Which is a title sufficiently conceited to put anyone off reading this post. But let’s face it – it’s a not uncommon attitude. It lies at the heart of individualism, that pervasiveness western sickness that lies at the root of so many of our ills. It was the title I had in our current series, Great Lies of Our Time (I’m assured that the talks were not allotted because of some particular problem that needed addressing in each speaker – but who can say for sure?).

You can now download the talk here.

Houellebecq’s ATOMISED: a crude & brutal exposure of the ‘suicide of Europe’

I hated this book. I can’t even remember who suggested  it or exactly why (it must have been something to do with the work I’m doing on our culture of suspicion and alienation) – but that’s probably just as well! Michel Houellebecq’s ATOMISED came out in France in 1999, and then in English translation in 2000: and caused uproar, scorn and derision, as well as some literary plaudits and admirers.

The Loser Letters: impish wit and a satirical dissection of atheism

Mary Eberstadt has a wonderful turn of phrase and an impish wit, which are used to devastating effect in her 2010 book The Loser Letters. She boldly takes on the mantle of C S Lewis’ Screwtape, but instead of infiltrating the murky world of Wormwood’s diabolical apprenticeship, she joins the New Atheists in their quest to crush theism. So she writes 10 open letters, in the persona of A.F.Christian (i.e. ‘a former Christian’), to some of the leading lights of the movement like Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris and Christopher Hitchens. With great relish she writes to advise ‘The Brights’ (atheists) on how better to defeat ‘The Dulls’ (Christians), and above all to undermine belief in ‘The Loser’ (God). At times, the result is laugh-out-loud funny.

Cynicism or Criticism? Developing an integrated mind at University

This is an update of a talk I gave nearly 15 years ago to some students back in Sheffield. My aim was to help them avoid the classic polar mistakes of either avoiding the intellectual challenges of university or being swamped by them altogether. There are all kinds of other joys, opportunities and challenges when people first go to uni, and so intellectual development is only one aspect of what needs thinking about. But I fear it is often overlooked altogether.

The Soviet Utopia and the assimilation of Biblical Imagery

I was very struck by this fascinating article (“Building Blocks” from the latest Royal Academy magazine) about post-revolution architecture and art in the Soviet Union. Never having visited Russia itself (despite having travelled fairly extensively through its former cold war satellites), my presumption was that architecture in that era was full of monolithic, brutalising and depersonalised buildings. But it seems was that this was primarily the result of Stalinist totalitarianism and did not characterise the confidence of the brand new revolutionary state that held (to some extent) its ideals intact.

A Song for Norway – a Czech protest song & the redemptive power of suffering

The news from Norway has defied words. Senseless, mindless, pointless; it is cruel, irrational evil. And supposedly in the name of Christ. Sickening.

I always resist to tweet or post about every event or topical twist and turn. I’m just not that kind of blogger, I guess.

Dawkins, ‘Pragmamorphism’ and the scientific vandalism of executing Saddam

When a fellow-scientist brands Richard Dawkins naïve you sit up and notice. But that’s exactly what Emanuel Derman has done. I didn’t know anything about Derman before, but it seems that he has rather an intimidating CV: he is a theoretical physicist, economist AND successful businessman originally from South Africa. All of which gives him a rather unique angle on a topic to which I’ve frequently returned on Q: the nature of being human (e.g.see Fritz Kahn’s Industrial Palace or the Nothing Buttery Rant).

Fun Friday 4: If it’s all random…

The fatal flaw in the claims to a random universe…?

Why We Love Men in Capes: now available at last!

Having been dreaming, scheming and working on this little project for months with a couple of friends (the illustrious Tim Plyming and the multi-talented radio producer John Sugar), it is with great excitement that we can now announce the release of this new 30 minute radio-documentary style programme:

Nothing Buttery: a Reductionism Rant

Reductio ad absurdum: one of those nice little Latin phrases that comes in handy every now and then. It has a noble pedigree and describes an age-old form of argument designed to pick one’s opponent’s claims apart. It means ‘reduction to the absurd’, or ‘to the point of absurdity’. And it is definitely worth mastering.

Q marks the spot – Treasure Map 31 (April 2011)

Sacred Treasure

• Martin Bashir is interviewed about his interview of Rob Bell. I was particularly struck by his perception of what C S Lewis called chronological snobbery in contemporary theological debates – whereby those over a certain age (ie 30!) are dismissed out of hand.
• Ian Paul has offered a really helpful response to the BBC1 series Bible’s Buried Secrets
• A wonderful example of doing good to all – let’s hope it works in all senses… Christopher Hitchens and Francis Collins.
• And while we’re thinking about him, here’s a nice if brief interview with Francis Collins – quite old now (originally from 2007), but I’ve only just seen it.
• At the other end of of the spectrum, here is a list of the 25 most influential atheists (though quite how you measure influence is anyone’s guess)
• In case you missed it, here is the extraordinary testimony of Shahbaz Bhatti, Pakistan’s assassinated government minister:

A courageous nod to God in a Soviet-era show-trial

Came across this fascinating morsel in a short New Yorker article by David Remnick from the run up to the recent Mikhail Khordorkovsky trial in Moscow. This fallen oligarch, it seems, has taken on the mantle of the dissenter from the Soviet era – not least because he is being pursued by former KGB agents and sent to the gulag. And so some unexpected comparisons have been made with those who genuinely work dissenters. And an archetypal example was Josef Brodsky. The article makes for some pretty chilling reading

In 1964, a twenty-three-year-old poet was arrested by the Leningrad K.G.B. and charged with the crime of “malicious parasitism.” His name was Josef Brodsky. One Communist Party newspaper denounced his poetry as “pornographic and anti-Soviet”; another noted archly that he wore “velvet pants.” The authorities permitted him to testify in court, but they soon regretted their decision, and their failure to prevent a brave woman named Frida Vigdorova from taking notes on the proceedings. Vigdorova wrote down this exchange—the most famous legal exchange in Russia since Stalin’s show trials—and the transcript was smuggled to the West:

JUDGE: And what is your profession?
BRODSKY: Poet. Poet and translator.
JUDGE: And who told you that you were a poet? Who assigned you that rank?
BRODSKY: No one. (Non-confrontationally.) Who assigned me to the human race?
JUDGE: And did you study for this?
BRODSKY: For what?
JUDGE: To become a poet? Did you try to attend a school where they train [poets] . . . where they teach . . .
BRODSKY: I don’t think it comes from education.
JUDGE: From what, then?
BRODSKY: I think it’s . . . (at a loss) . . . from God.

The judge sentenced Brodsky to five years of internal exile. Living in a village near the Arctic Circle, he crushed rocks and hauled manure by day. At night, he wrote, and he improved his English by reading Auden and Frost. Brodsky’s mentor, the great Silver Age poet Anna Akhmatova, laughed at the K.G.B.’s shortsightedness. “What a biography they’re fashioning for our red-haired friend!” she said. “It’s as if he’d hired them to do it on purpose.”

Akhmatova was hardly naïve about the capabilities of Soviet justice—she had lost a husband and countless friends in the Gulag—but she could see that the state was providing a linguistic genius with an aura of heroism. By the time Brodsky returned to Leningrad, he was a mature poet, whose brand of dissidence was an implacable disdain for the Soviet regime and an enduring devotion to the Russian language. The state soon found it necessary to exile this untamable creature abroad.

What struck me most about this is the sheer incompatibility and even clash of their worldviews. The judge who can only see things in institutional or societal terms – ie to be a poet you must be taught or commissioned by the state etc; against this young Jewish poet sees that we are far more than biological machines (see previous post).

Q Marks the Spot: Treasure Map 28 (January 2011)

A VERY HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ONE AND ALL!!

Sacred Treasure

• Very helpful article by Scot McKnight cutting a dash through the apparent problems harmonising the teaching of
  Jesus & Paul.
• Victoria Coren does a fab and witty job on believing in God in the face of the new atheist
  onslaught.
• In case you missed it, Great stuff to accompany the new Narnia film.
• Fascinating article by Philip Yancey about the church in the middle east, taken from his new book
• Glen Scrivener has come up with a great idea for the 400th anniversary of the King James Bible: a website dedicated to its influence called The King’s English

Topical Treasure

• The ever insightful John Naughton on Wikileaks
• What the Internet killed (HT Challies)

Quirky Treasure

• This is wonderful – different actors acting. Which reminds me of
  one of my favourite coffee table books, In Character, Howard Schatz’s
  photographs of actors recreating frozen moments.
• What if one man had been washed overboard on
  the Mayflower…?
• The 10
  most remarkable
  sculptures…
• Trace the development
  of ideas in books over the last 500 years – thanks to Google Books NGram viewer (HT Murray
  Wright)
• How long can you last? It at least
  saves time. All of Billy Joel’s songs AT THE SAME TIME.
• Wonderful photo of Leonard
  Bernstein after conducting Mahler
• Handling the challenge of writer’s block (HT 22 Words):

What if Dr Seuss had
written Star Wars (RT 22 Words)

Rehabilitating the Medieval Scientific Mind and why it matters

Sir Isaac Newton is a titan in world science, so it’s no surprise that he features on the very first, and the penultimate page of James Hannam’s excellent, 2009 book God’s Philosophers (which made it onto the shortlist for the 2010 Royal Society Prize for Science Books.

Where the ghost in the machine? Fritz Kahn’s Industrial Palace

Fritz Kahn was a remarkable man – a scientist, gynaecologist, artist, polymath – and eventually a Jewish refugee to the USA from Nazi Germany. He produced a series of extraordinary images in which he portrayed the human body as a machine.

This is his most celebrated picture, Man as an Industrial Palace (from 1927). Its details are stunning in their intricacy and accuracy. This is a work of true genius. I just love it.

But I’m provoked by it too. For it illustrates, whether intentionally or not (and I don’t know enough about Kahn to say which), a prevailing modernist view that we are skinfulls of chemicals, preprogrammed to perform certain biological functions as the consequence of some overarching but closed evolutionary process. This fits with an enlightenment agenda which Os Guinness brilliantly summed up:

The goal of modernity is ‘to know everything in order to predict everything in order to control everything.’

But the reality is that there are so many things about us that don’t make sense or that don’t fit into our categories. Now, please note. This is not an anti-science rant. Science is a noble quest – seeking to understand and explain. At its best, it is able to perform wonders of healing, and restoration. But is it really simply a matter of time before we understand everything about ourselves? Or are there aspects of our humanity that just don’t fall into scientific categories? Is there not a ghost in the machine?

I suspect that this was something of what Churchill was getting at in a House of Commons speech in 1950:

Man in this moment of his history has emerged in greater supremacy over the forces of nature than has ever been dreamed of before. He has it in his power to solve quite easily the problems of natural power to solve quite easily the problems of natural existence. He has conquered the wild beasts, and he has conquered the insects and the microbes. There lies before him, if he wishes, a golden age of peace and progress. All is in his hand. He has only to conquer his last and worst enemy – himself.

Or as controversial but influential philosopher Martin Heidegger put it:

No age knows so much and so many things about man as does ours and yet no age knows less than ours of what man is.

Enter not the ‘God of the gaps’ but the God of the cosmos - the one ultimate cause and sustainer of every aspect of the universe. As Martin Luther King put it when accepting his Nobel Peace Prize in 1964:

I refuse to believe the notion that man is mere flotsam and jetsam in the river of life… unable to respond to the eternal oughtness that forever confronts him.

This is what underpinned Luther King’s political philosophy – and in fact, being made in God’s image was the backbone of his conviction that we have equal value as human beings, regardless of race, social standing or any other division (as Tim Keller explores in his recent, excellent Generous Justice pp86ff).

But it’s pretty difficult to draw that. It’s also impossible to categorise that in a laboratory-friendly pigeon-hole.

Well, so much for these ramblings. They’re all an excuse to post this phenomenal, recent animation of Kahn’s image. It manages to bring the picture to life brilliantly and faithfully, with some fab sound effects. Enjoy!

Provocations and Grace from Tim Keller’s Generous Justice

I have been waiting for years for someone to write this book. And so I’m hugely grateful to Tim Keller. He’s clearly the man for the job – his years of ministerial experience, academic ability and personal integrity well qualify him to write of the crying need for Evangelicals to engage with issues of justice and poverty. He’s done it before in his celebrated Ministries of Mercy, but this book seems to have a greater apologetic edge.

And he knows his audience. Or rather his audiences. For he is well-aware, no doubt from heated interactions, that there are various groups out there who are profoundly sceptical of this passion. The problem is that they are coming from such conflicting starting positions; so it takes a masterly lightness of touch to engage each without alienating another.

A complex battleground

But part of the approach is to identify his interlocutors from the start (from page xi) and then interact with each as he goes along – I’ve tried summarise them like this:

• The Instinctive Advocate: those Christians with the gut feeling that poverty and justice are important but who have never been able to integrate that with their faith. To them, Keller seeks to give a thought through, biblical rationale for why this instinct is god-given.
• The Sceptical Evangelist: those who fear any journey down this road will inevitably lead to doctrinal compromise and the ‘social gospel’. We’re here just to evangelise, aren’t we? To which Keller challenges by articulating both Old & New Testament motivations and commands to love the poor, and to question what a reluctance to such love might indicate about their ministerial context and personal spirituality. He doesn’t think they are the same thing - and this is important to what he goes on to say – but he does argue that we can’t have one without the other:

… to consider deeds of mercy and justice to be identical to gospel proclamation is a fatal confusion. I propose a different way to understand evangelism and social justice. They should exist in an asymmetrical, inseparable relationship. (p139)

It is also impossible to separate word and deed ministry from each other in ministry because human beings are integrated wholes – body and soul. When some Christians say, ‘Caring for physical needs will detract from evangelism’, they must be thinking of only doing evangelism among people who are comfortable and well-off. (p141-142)

• The Revisionist Campaigner: frustrated by evangelicals’ sluggish or avoided engagement, these go further than Instinctive Advocates and blame what they perceive as the ‘individualism’ of protestant orthodoxy. Their solution is to water down or distance themselves from it. To them, Keller is resounding in his appeal to evangelical orthodoxy – not just because he seeks to prove its biblical faithfulness, but also because he sees it as the fundamental bridge to a changed life and ethical behaviour, when it is properly understood. This quotation could serve as a summary of a point that he frequently returns to:

But as we have seen, doing justice is inseparably connected to preaching grace. This is true in two ways. One way is that the gospel produces a concern for the poor. The other is that deeds of justice gain credibility for the preaching of the gospel. In other words justification by faith leads to doing justice, and doing justice can make many seek to be justified by faith. (p140)

• The Atheist Accuser: those who follow the likes of Christopher Hitchens by claiming that ‘religion poisons everything’. Keller has interacted with such issues before, most notably in The Reason for God. But the focus is narrower here. His approach is to question the ethical basis for human rights in the forbidding frigidity of a godless universe, and then to suggest that talk of human dignity is an inevitable corollary of divine creation and redemption. He even seems to have Derrida on his side on that point! (p167) It is a trenchant argument – proving that far from being poisonous, religion, and Christianity in particular, is pivotal for the protection of the vulnerable and the weak. This is, of course, why it is such an affront and scandal when Christians don’t do that.

I suppose for a number of years I fell very much into the first camp – troubled by the world’s injustices, but unable to articulate an integrated theological response. Many friends, whom I hugely respect, were in the second – and part of the problem, I think, is that they would not read or engage with many who think differently on this issue (because of their lack of orthodoxy in other areas). What is so refreshing therefore about Keller’s approach is that he is explicitly and deliberately approaching the question from the vantage point of the classic reformed doctrines of creation, substitutionary atonement, justification, sanctification and so on. Some attack him because his social involvement leads to suspicions that he has gone soft on these. But Keller retorts by saying that it is precisely this gospel that drives him to it. And he enjoys great precedents in reformed luminaries as diverse as Jonathan Edwards, Murray M’Cheyne and Abraham Kuyper (all of whom he quotes at various points).

Getting back to the Non-Question

Having lived in the two-thirds world for a number of years, it was impossible to ignore the  appalling conditions and social realities of people’s lives. It would have been callous to do so. That, in part, is why very few African friends understand the western church’s hang up on social action and evangelism. It’s a non-question for them. But in Generous Justice, Keller convincingly argues in a coherent, accessible and readable way why it should be non-question for us all. I sensed when we lived in Uganda, and I sense all the more strongly having read this book, that one mistake is to get lost in the intricacies of working out theoretical priorities (a necessary activity, of course). You start pitting this life against the next life and … well … it seems no contest.

But suppose we take the concern for justice out of the mission equation, just for a moment (don’t panic – I do think that it is an integral part of what God is doing on earth, which is why we should be involved. But bear with me just for a moment.) Instead, place justice and poverty in matters of holiness and discipleship and suddenly the landscape changes. It’s not then primarily a question of priorities. It’s a question of godliness. We don’t ask, ‘is it more important to be honest, humble or generous?’ That would be ludicrous. We shouldn’t expect to have to choose – we should strive after all three.

So it is with seeking justice and loving the poor. And as that is God’s heartbeat, so it should be ours. As Keller points out, it’s fascinating that God introduces himself as

‘a father to the fatherless, a defender of widows’ (Ps 68:4-5). This is one of the main things he does in the world. He identifies with the powerless, he takes up their cause. (p6)

To be like God is to do the same thing – to care for what has been called the “quartet of the vulnerable” (the widows, orphans, immigrants and the poor cf. Zech 7:10-11). (p4)

Grace changes everything

The thrust of this book’s argument is that grace is the heart of everything. And so Keller returns to the well-worn but crucial paths on the dangerous road to Jericho. His earlier book Ministries of Mercy was subtitled the Call of the Jericho Road. And here he is very clear why we should:

Before you can give this neighbour-love [e.g. as the Samaritan does], you need to receive it. Only if you see that you have been saved graciously by someone who owes you the opposite will you go out into the world looking to  help absolutely anyone in need. (p77)

This is why the gospel of grace is absolutely pivotal – both for motivating and modelling an all-round holistic ministry, and for reminding us of our own deep needs and equality with those we serve and love.

In the next post, I’ll pick up some of the more practical and political aspects of Keller’s case.

Q marks the spot – Treasure Map 25 (October 2010)

Rather a bumper list this time…

Sacred Treasure

• A truly remarkable essay by former hostage Brian Keenan about the importance of hope for those 33 trapped miners in Chile. (HT Nancy H)
• Howard Jacobson reflects on the horror of 9/11 and the sense of feeling left behind and lost. (HT Nancy H)
• Barry Cooper writes warmly about a mutual friend of ours, Tony Jones – I took over the same job from Tony at St Ebbe’s the following year, and am in awe of his capacity for work (I managed only half of what he did!).
• Computer models show how wind could have caused the parting of the Red Sea for Moses! (HT Charles Sperling)
• ‘Cranmer’ detects a great ecclesiastical gag played by the pope at Westminster Abbey.
• There seem to have been a number of events and publications remembering the London Blitz of 1940. This is rather a good website about London’s West End at war, including a page about the night All Souls was bombed. Some of this was drawn from the little history I wrote last year.

Sacred/Secular (?) Treasure

Meanwhile there’s been a lot of comings and goings on the Sacred/Secular divide in the western world – so here’s a new little sub theme with are one or two extra related links on that front:

• Alistair ‘We don’t do God’ Campbell gives an interesting (albeit party-political) take on what he meant by it.
• A fascinating article and graphic comparing national prosperity and levels of religious faith (from NY Times – HT Drew Woolf)

• And while we’re on the subject, Time magazine asks if France has taken secularism too far…
• But interestingly, recent surveys suggest that church attendance in the UK is stabilising or increasing.

Topical Treasure

• If this doesn’t put you off going to sea, I don’t know what will.
• A whole new way to check on flight arrival times…
• Truly inspiring images from The Royal Observatory’s Astronomy Photography Competition
• Amazing Robert Capa photos discovered from the Spanish Civil War.

Quirky Treasure

• Astonishingly good quality colour photos from Imperial Russia in 1910 (HT John Goering)
• Lovely flowing redesign suggestion for the London Underground map (HT  Information is Beautiful)
• I love these – I wish they were distributed daily in newsagents…
• This is an extraordinary journalistic sight – the mind boggles about seeing the banners of the Telegraph, Times, Grauniad, Mail, Sun, Mirror, Exchange and Mart, and the Racing Post all on one front page.
• Amazing coincidence that helped with the translation of the Rosetta Stone.
• Swish politician catches the giggles because of bureaucratic legalese.
• You have never seen time-lapse photography like this from Dan Eckert – the camera moves as well… (HT Kuriositas)

• 100 years ago, the only alternative to Google was this (HT 22 Words) – A cross-section of New York Public Library in 1911

Weird. Steve Turner doesn’t believe in air

Having posted on Friday about the importance of the insensible, I came across this great number from Steve Turner. Subverts perfectly the prevailing mood of scepticism…

I DON’T BELIEVE IN AIR

I don’t believe in air.
No one has ever seen it.
No one has ever felt it
between finger and thumb.
Converts talk about
tasting the air
and smelling the air,
but there’s always another explanation;
the nearby sea, a factory’s pipes,
a pile of fresh manure.
It’s not the so-called air
that smells.

Scientists have complete faith
in this air.
They say it upholds
and sustains our world.
Take away the air, they argue,
and we’d go too.
Meteorologists attribute
signs and wonders to the air;
people thrown to the ground,
trees uprooted, the landscape rearranged.
It sounds like superstition to me.
If there is air,
who made it?
Where does it all go?
Why doesn’t it show itself
just one time for proof?

Friends ask me why windows rattle
and hair goes awry,
but I don’t believe in air.
I don’t believe in air.
Air is just another word
for something that’s not there.

(Poems, p138)

Exchange the word ‘air’ with the word ‘God’, and you’ll get the point. Remember Jesus’ chat with Nicodemus…

Albert Camus and the path to … faith?

I think if I were not a Christian, I’d be an existentialist of some description. It’s not just the attraction of sitting and chilling in French cafés, sipping espressos and smoking Gitanes, putting the world to rights. It’s just that I see little alternative – it is the only logical, honest conclusion to draw.

I remember having to read Albert Camus’ L’Etranger for French A Level at school – and being pretty nonplussed by it – but not totally put off either. It is a truly fascinating book. Bizarrely enough, I only came back to it and took it more seriously after hearing the The Cure’s 1978 classic ‘Killing an Arab‘. Those who didn’t know it’s inspiration were scandalised – the title itself is pretty provocative. But that’s completely to miss the point. It is a spare, harsh but brilliant evocation of the book’s Algerian setting. And I’ve found the book disturbingly beguiling since.

So it was with considerable interest that I read Rob Moll’s brief testimony in last month’s Christianity Today, intriguingly entitled on Saved by an Atheist. Read the whole thing. But here are a few gems:

Christians gave Albert Camus good reasons not to believe. He gave me a reason to return to faith.

In discussing Camus’ novel, The Plague, and the scene where the protagonist Rieux discovers he is in as much difficulty as everyone else. He too has ‘the plague’.

It was this scene that struck me most forcefully. Camus was right, I knew, and I too, had plague. I was sick and in need of a Physician. Camus’ willingness to accept the truth that human beings are fallen allowed me to do the same. Camus held a mirror to my face – in a way that no pastor, preacher, or professor had – and I knew I needed salvation.

Then in discussing why people turn to atheism, there is this pointed observation:

Most of my wandering friends, like me, seem to have returned to Christ. But I’ve found that a surprising number who had fully accepted the faith have now left it. Each tended to have had some experience in which Christian leaders acted as hypocritical, power-hungry, judgemental, or arrogant elites. For some, the church’s inability to shepherd during a painful period led directly to rejecting God. “If God isn’t there when I need him”, they say, “I don’t need him.”.

Ouch.

So he ends with this crucial advice:

But before we begin dueling on blogs and arming ourselves with television talking points, let’s learn to see atheists not as deniers of God, but as wrestlers with him. And let’s remember that their deepest arguments against belief are the people they’re arguing with.

A fair point indeed.