Phill Sacre

Tag: christianity

  • Reflections on the same-sex marriage debate within the church

    Reflections on the same-sex marriage debate within the church

    Over the last few weeks, I’ve been involved with a Facebook group set up to discuss same-sex marriage (SSM) within the church. This has been set up as the CofE undergoes a “shared conversations” process to talk about the issue. This has been the first time I’ve really spent much time actually talking with people within the church who believe in same-sex marriage (or ‘affirming’, as I will use in this post as a convenient shorthand). Although I have had brief conversations with affirming people before, most of them have been pretty fleeting so it’s been good to have the chance to engage with people over an extended period of time.

    I thought I’d share one or two observations about the debate as I’ve observed it over the past few weeks. I do think there is a difference in the way the two sides think and approach the question.

    Firstly: the debate is all about the Bible. This one is pretty much a no-brainer. Obviously the debate was going to focus on the Bible, it is the heart of the disagreement: does the Bible call same-sex relationships sinful or not? When I joined the group, I was expecting to spend a lot of time discussing the Bible.

    Having said this, what I’ve found interesting is that the debate has not really been about the Bible texts themselves. We have spent a little bit of time discussing interpretations of the Bible, but in general the group does not spend much time discussing the various interpretations of Romans 1:18-32 (for example). I wonder whether this reflects the fact that there really is very little scope for interpreting the Bible any differently to the way it has traditionally been interpreted. Diarmaid MacCulloch (who is himself strongly affirming of SSM) has said: “Despite much well-intentioned theological fancy footwork to the contrary, it is difficult to see the Bible as expressing anything else but disapproval of homosexual activity, let alone having any conception of a homosexual identity.”

    It seems instead that people would rather talk about almost anything about the Bible other than the Biblical texts themselves. We talk about the Bible’s clarity, interpretation, translation, history of interpretation on slavery and so on… almost anything other than the text of what the Bible actually says.

    This leads me onto the second point (where I contradict my first point, but please stick with it…): the debate is not really about the Bible at all. It seems to me that the debate is not actually about what the Bible says. It’s not even really about interpretation, or any of those other issues surrounding how we understand the Bible.

    The debate is actually about the presuppositions we bring to the table. As we’ve been discussing, what I’ve come to believe is that most affirming people see SSM as a matter of basic justice. When asked for a Bible text to justify SSM, a lot of people come out with “love your neighbour as yourself.” Now unless I’m missing something, Jesus doesn’t here mention marriage – rather, the idea is that the most loving thing to do for our neighbour is to allow them to enter into a SSM if they want to. So SSM is argued for on Biblical principles rather than on the text of the Bible itself.

    I find this interesting because although equality, justice etc. are all Biblical principles – you can’t just extract them from the Bible and use them in isolation from the Biblical context. Especially when those principles are being used to argue against other things the Bible does actually say. So, for example, although I think ‘equality’ is a Biblical principle, it doesn’t stand on its own – it only exists within the larger framework of other things the Bible says about what it means to be human. Similarly, ‘inclusion’ is a Biblical principle – Jesus ate with sinners such as Zacchaeus – but we must also read it in tandem with its radical exclusivity: Jesus’ demand is to repent and believe in the good news. So, in this example we can’t just take ‘inclusion’ as a Biblical principle and apply it in isolation – that would be doing a big disservice to everything else that the Bible says.

    My sense is that most people on the affirming side of the SSM debate come to the table believing that SSM is an inalienable right – that no-one should be denied the right to marriage because of their sexual orientation. In our society this is a hugely powerful idea which draws on a lot of things our culture believes about identity, humanity and romance. Given this foundational belief, when coming to Scripture one essentially has to presuppose the conclusion one wants to draw: because if the Bible did actually call same-sex relationships sinful, that would be wrong. So the answer is already decided before the Bible is even opened.

    Recently someone made the perceptive comment that a theology of SSM is actually highly elusive: although many affirming groups criticise the traditional interpretations of Scripture, there are very few people who actually attempt to go through the Bible and build up a theology of SSM. A few have tried but their efforts haven’t achieved anything like a consensus. Most people seem content to simply point the finger at a range of interpretations, no matter how good or bad those interpretations are – just their very existence validates the fact that at least one of them must be correct (see my third point on this post).

    But I think it serves to highlight the differences in our approaches. Although many affirming folk would claim the Bible as their authority, I think in reality the Bible’s authority is relativised and set aside. Our current cultural narratives about equality, justice, romance etc are taken as axiomatic and take precedence when interpreting the Bible – without any real theological reflection about the nature of equality etc.

    In sum, I’m grateful for the opportunity I’ve had to discuss this issue with people – it’s always good to try to understand other people’s views better, and it has helped me to clarify my own thinking. But it has made me realise even more that there is a huge and unbridgeable chasm between our two perspectives – and I think to affirm both within one church would be absolutely unworkable.

  • On God "Herself"

    “No one has ever seen God, but the one and only Son, who is himself God and is in closest relationship with the Father, has made him known.” (John 1:18)

    On Twitter today, something of a kerfuffle has broken out about whether it’s right to call God using feminine pronouns – ‘her’, ‘herself’, etc. John Bingham wrote about it in the Telegraph yesterday; today Rev Kate Bottley (the Gogglebox vicar) has written about it today in the Guardian. The debate itself has been going for some time now, for example there’s an article in the Christian Today magazine from last year: “Is it wrong to refer to God in the female?”

    As I understand it, the arguments for referring to God as female boil down to these:

    • Referring to God exclusively using masculine pronouns devalues women. According to the Telegraph piece above, a spokesperson from WATCH (“Women at the Church”, who campaigned for Women Bishops) said: “to continue to refer to God purely as male is just unhelpful to many people now”. Using exclusively masculine language for God reflects a patriarchal time and there is no reason for it any more.
    • Biblically, male and female are made in the image of God. Genesis 1:27 says, “So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.” In other words, because men and women are both created in the image of God, God therefore embodies both male and female characteristics. God transcends our language of gender.
    • Following on from the point above, God is described at various points in the Bible as having feminine characteristics. For example, in Matthew 23:37 Jesus says, “Jerusalem, Jerusalem … how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing.” So Jesus uses a femine metaphor to describe himself.

    I hope I haven’t misrepresented these arguments or left anything major out – the articles I linked to above have some fuller discussion. However, I remain strongly convinced that the church should not change its liturgy on this matter, and continue to refer to God using masculine pronouns. Once again (like the question of sexuality), I think this issue really boils down to a question of the Bible, its authority and its interpretation.

    The most important question for me is the one introduced by the quote I started out with from John’s Gospel. How do any of us know God? John answers that question, “No one has ever seen God, but the one and only Son, who is himself God and is in closest relationship with the Father, has made him known.” In other words, Jesus, the Son of God, has made God – the Father – known to us. And, as such, if we are Christian we have to say that the revelation that Jesus gave us of God was a true revelation.

    This was significant in the church’s debates around Arianism (around 3rd-5th centuries): for example, when Jesus instructed his disciples to baptise people “in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” (Matthew 28:19), were those names simply terms of convenience or did they actually represent something important about God? The Arians wanted to make Jesus a created being, and in a sense actually deny that Jesus was a true Son. However, the early church ecumenical councils decided that those names did actually mean something beyond labels of convenience: the Father is a real Father; the Son is a real Son – not in the human sense, but in an eternal sense. Although it is of course true that human language lacks the capacity to describe the infinite, we are nonetheless able to apprehend something of the truth by the terms “Father” and “Son”. So Jesus’ revelation of God is a true revelation, and it reveals that God is eternally Father, Son and Spirit.

    I think you can see something of the difference in approaches here by looking at Rachel Held Evans’ blog post about this issue last year (she was accused of heresy for describing God as ‘she’). Rachel says, “while God is often referred to as Father [my emphasis]”. ‘Referred to’? I think rather the traditional orthodox position would be revealed as. If you think that Jesus simply referred to God as ‘Father’ out of convenience rather than out of meaning something significant, that is moving away from a traditional understanding of the Trinity.

    Following on from that, was Jesus simply using the words “Father” and “Son” due to the society being patriarchal? Could he, in another society, been born as a woman and called God “mother”? In a nutshell, would it ever be right to call God “Mother, Daughter and Holy Spirit”? I’m always a little suspicious of the patriarchy argument: it seems to be a lazy way of glossing over what the Biblical text actually says, reading back into the text modern notions of patriarchy and assuming that if the Biblical authors had been as enlightened as we are they would have written something different. Whatever you think of these texts, you have to wrestle with Genesis 2:18, 22; 1 Cor 11:3; 1 Tim 2:11-15 and so on. What Kate Bottley does in her article is emphasise the human aspect of the BIble in saying that it was written into a patriarchal context, while seemingly downplaying the divine aspect of the Bible. I believe that the Bible is ‘God-breathed’, although it was written by men it is nonetheless the Word of God. So I think to talk about ‘patriarchy’ is to downplay the fact that God might actually have something to say to us on gender in our society: it overrides anything the Bible might say with our own society’s conceptions of gender (which are not based on the Bible).

    It is of course true that there are times when the Bible uses feminine metaphors to talk about God. However, a feminine metaphor is not defining. For example, I know men who have some stereotypically feminine characteristics – does that make them female? No! I simply can’t get past the fact that Scripture always calls God by masculine pronouns – even by Jesus who, as we have already seen, is the only one who ever walked this earth to be in a position to really know!

    Incidentally, I do find it interesting that those who advocate for calling God by feminine names (e.g. WATCH, who campaigned vigorously for women bishops) do so on the basis of the differences between men and women. It seems like much of the campaign for women bishops rested on minimising if not erasing differences between men and women (such as the constant misuse of Galatians 3:28). Although I am aware that many did not campaign in this way, the idea that there could be any actual God-ordained differences between men and women was often downplayed. So I think there is a tension there, although I won’t go into that now.

    Anyway, in summary, I don’t think changing our liturgy to include God ‘herself’ would be a good thing!

  • The Road to Emmaus: thoughts on seeing Jesus

    Source: Wikimedia

    “How do I see Jesus?” Not a question people ask very often, but nonetheless it has a lot of answers. Do I see Jesus by trying to be a good person? Do I see Jesus by praying a lot? Do I see Jesus by looking deep inside myself to try to find out what God is saying to me?

    I think the story of the Road to Emmaus might help us to answer those questions. On Easter Sunday I preached on this wonderful passage from Luke 24. It’s a poignant and moving story, and there’s a huge amount you could say about it. What I was particularly struck by this time was how the story is like a metaphor for meeting and following Jesus for every Christian.

    The story starts with two men, who had been followers of Jesus, dejectedly walking back home while talking about the events of the past few days (the crucifixion). As they were walking along on their journey, the risen Jesus comes alongside them – but they were kept from recognising him. It turns out that the Jesus they followed was not the Jesus who rose: they believed in a Jesus who they “had hoped … was going to redeem Israel” (v21): in other words, they believed in a Messiah who was going to be some kind of military conqueror, someone who was going to overthrow the Roman oppressors and lead an earthly kingdom. Although they did believe in Jesus, they believed in a false Jesus.

    However, Jesus didn’t let them continue in this dejected state: he opens the Scriptures to them, and shows how all that has happened was a fulfilment of prophecy, and how all the Scriptures testify to himself. Before those two disciples could see him, Jesus had to open their eyes to the Scriptures. Finally, they invite Jesus in, and he comes in and eats with them – they share fellowship. As Jesus breaks the bread, then their eyes are opened and they see Jesus, and they return to the other disciples only to find that Jesus has appeared to them too.

    What does this say to us about discipleship today? I’d like to suggest a few things:

    • Everyone is following a ‘Jesus’ – everyone believes in some kind of saviour. That saviour may not be a person (for example some people trust in politics, or reason, or money, etc). But each of us follows some kind of a saviour, some kind of a ‘fake Jesus’. Like those two disciples on the Emmaus road – the fake Jesus we follow will let us down, the fake Jesus will lead to despondency.
    • But, the good news is, the real Jesus – the risen Lord, the one who is alive and reigns with the Father – comes alongside us, even in the midst of our despair. Because Jesus is alive, he can come alongside us wherever our journey may take us and open our eyes to him.
    • Jesus doesn’t immediately reveal himself to them – he opens their eyes to the Scriptures. This is one of the key things about following Jesus: coming to know Jesus is coming to know God’s plan of redemption. It means understanding who we are as sinners, who God is as a holy judge, who I am as someone in need of forgiveness. In other words, we don’t see Jesus in isolation – understanding Jesus requires understanding the bigger picture of God’s plan.
    • Only after Jesus opens their eyes to the Scriptures and they share fellowship together do they finally see Him. Jesus is the one who takes the initiative, he is the one who comes alongside them and opens their eyes.
    • Yet – once they see Jesus, he disappears from their eyes. They ‘see’ him with eyes of faith now – they do not need him to be physically present. Once their eyes were opened to the Scriptures, once he came and shared fellowship with them, they had by faith what they had previously only had by sight.

    One big lesson from all of this is to do with seeing Jesus, as we started out thinking about. If you want to see Jesus, look no further than a Bible. Pray to God that he would open your eyes to see Jesus, and open the pages of Scripture. And the risen Lord comes alongside us and opens our eyes.

  • Is doubt a good thing? Faith and doubt in the Bible

    Is doubt a good thing? Faith and doubt in the Bible

    In my previous post I asked whether doubt in the Christian life is a good thing. In Greg Boyd’s book, “Benefit of the Doubt”, he answers – essentially – yes, doubt is a good thing. However, I questioned the care with which Boyd had come up with a definition of faith and doubt, and said that I would write another post looking at how I understood the Bible to talk about faith and doubt. This is that post.

    At various points in this post I will point out where I disagree with Boyd, however I hope that this post will stand on its own and be readable without reading the book or my review of it.

    First things first: What is faith?

    I don’t want to focus on faith too much because I think the real meat of what I want to say is in looking at doubt. However, I think it would be helpful to start out by briefly thinking about faith.

    The classic Biblical definition of faith, as Boyd points out in his book, is Hebrews 11:1: “Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.” In other words, the Christian life is in this life a lot to do with things that we cannot yet see, things which are invisible to our eyes – faith is the means by which we gain access to these things we cannot see and enter into God’s kingdom. If you study Hebrews, you’ll see that this world – although we can see it – is actually passing away; the world which we cannot yet see is the one which is unshakeable and will last forever. Faith is the means by which we go from one to the other.

    But what else can we say about faith? I think the most important thing to say here is that faith is a gift. Faith does not come from within ourselves, it is not the case that we need to make ourselves psychologically certain. In Ephesians 2, Paul talks about our salvation, and he says: “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith – and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God“. Peter O’Brien in his commentary says that the “this” refers not just to faith but to the whole process. Salvation is the Lord’s work from start to finish, he gives us faith as a gift.

    This is backed up elsewhere. In Romans 12:3, Paul says: “do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the faith God has distributed to each of you.” Notice that last part – it is enough to note for now that God is the one who gives faith.

    One more reference – in John 6, Jesus has a dispute with the Jewish authorities. They do not believe in him for reasons which Jesus demonstrates are false. In this context, he says: “All those the Father gives me will come to me” (John 6:37). This whole section is highly significant: Christians – those who believe in Jesus – are seen as a gift from the Father to the Son. The Father is the one who brings people to the Son. This is another way of saying that faith is a gift of God. We cannot take the credit for it.

    Why do I take the time to stress this? Because it runs so counter to Boyd’s accusation of a ‘certainty-seeking faith’. Faith can never be something which we psychologically work ourselves up to. A lot of people think of faith like Neo from the Matrix, when he first tries to do something he previously believed was impossible. Faith needed to be something which he built up in his own mind before he reached the full amount. In complete contrast, I believe that the Bible says faith is something which God gives to us as a gift.

    So what of certainty? I’m not sure that what Boyd thinks of as ‘certainty’ in conservative circles is really to do with faith per se – but I won’t go into that now as I think it would be a deviation from thinking about the next topic…

    What about doubt?

    This is where I believe Boyd made some rather serious omissions in his book. Let’s think about what the Bible says about doubt, starting with (almost) the very beginning: Genesis 3.

    Now the snake was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, ‘Did God really say, “You must not eat from any tree in the garden”?’ (Genesis 3:1)

    This is the first time that sin is recorded in the Bible. What does the serpent do to the woman here? In essence – he causes her to doubt God’s word. The serpent puts a doubt in the woman’s mind about what God really said. In fact, I believe that this is a model for how sin works in general: is sin not, at its root, doubt? We doubt that God is good. We doubt that God’s commands are good. We doubt that God knows best for us. We doubt that God has made us in a particular way. And so, we think that we know best and go our own way rather than God’s.

    You will no doubt recall that God does not give Adam and Eve a hearty slap on the back and congratulate them for doubting. In fact, I think there is a real sense that by distrusting God’s words, Adam and Eve were distrusting God himself. There is a continuity between God’s words and Himself: God’s words are not simply arbitrary words, they spring from his very character. They are truthful, because God is truthful. They are righteous, because he is righteous. And so on. To distrust God’s Word is to distrust God himself.

    This is a pattern we find echoed elsewhere in the Bible. Let’s just look at a couple of examples. Further on in Genesis, chapter 18, we read a rather curious story where “the LORD” himself comes to visit Abraham – “three men” come to see him. God had previously promised Abraham descendants, but as yet he and his wife were childless.

    Then one of them said, ‘I will surely return to you about this time next year, and Sarah your wife will have a son.’
    Now Sarah was listening at the entrance to the tent, which was behind him. Abraham and Sarah were already very old, and Sarah was past the age of childbearing. So Sarah laughed to herself as she thought, ‘After I am worn out and my lord is old, will I now have this pleasure?’
    Then the Lord said to Abraham, ‘Why did Sarah laugh and say, “Will I really have a child, now that I am old?” Is anything too hard for the Lord? I will return to you at the appointed time next year, and Sarah will have a son.’

    Sarah here doubts that she will be able to have children given her age, and she is somewhat rebuked for it. Is this relevant to the matter of doubt as we have been discussing it? I believe that it does at least establish that there is a kind of doubt which is not commended – and once again, it has something to do with not believing or trusting in words or promises which God has given.

    If we turn to Luke 1, we read a very similar story. An angel of the Lord appears to Zechariah, a priest, while he is serving at the altar. The angel tells him that he will have a son, but – just like Sarah – Zechariah doubts that this will happen:

    Zechariah asked the angel, ‘How can I be sure of this? I am an old man and my wife is well on in years.’
    The angel said to him, ‘I am Gabriel. I stand in the presence of God, and I have been sent to speak to you and to tell you this good news. And now you will be silent and not able to speak until the day this happens, because you did not believe my words, which will come true at their appointed time.’

    Once again, the angel doesn’t commend Zechariah for doubting God’s words: doubting God’s word is seen as doubting God himself. So, again, we have this connection between doubt and God’s word not being a good thing in God’s eyes.

    And, of course, there is the classic example of ‘doubting Thomas’ (a rather unfortunate nickname). Does Jesus commend Thomas for not believing without seeing with his own eyes? No. Thomas should have believed Jesus when he said that he would rise again, and he should have believed his friends when they told him that they had seen Jesus alive. But, as Jesus says, “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed” (John 20:29).

    Where does this leave us?

    At the very least, I think it’s right to say that there is a kind of doubt which is most certainly not a good thing. G.K. Chesterton puts it so well, in his own inimitable style:

    But what we suffer from to-day is humility in the wrong place. Modesty has moved from the organ of ambition. Modesty has settled upon the organ of conviction; where it was never meant to be. A man was meant to be doubtful about himself, but undoubting about the truth; this has been exactly reversed. Nowadays the part of a man that a man does assert is exactly the part he ought not to assert — himself. The part he doubts is exactly the part he ought not to doubt — the Divine Reason. [Orthodoxy, source here]

    I think that Chesterton really nails it here. Is doubt a good thing? Not when it comes to God’s promises and his Word. Boyd does a reasonable job in his book of showing that we need to put our trust in God even despite our difficulties. In many ways the story of Job is about having faith in God despite suffering, despite adverse circumstances – having faith that God is the one who knows what he is doing.

    But Job is not about doubting God’s words. What does the Bible say about God’s Word, i.e. what does the Word of God say about the Word of God?

    “Your word is a lamp for my feet, a light on my path.” (Ps. 119:105)
    “And the words of the Lord are flawless, like silver purified in a crucible, like gold refined seven times.” (Ps. 12:6)
    “As the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return to it without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish, so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater,
    so is my word that goes out from my mouth: it will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.” (Isa. 55:10-11)
    “And we also thank God continually because, when you received the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as a human word, but as it actually is, the word of God, which is indeed at work in you who believe.” (1 Thess. 2:13)
    “For the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.” (Heb. 4:12)

    I hope that I have made my point. If we trust in God, we must trust in his Word – the Bible – as well as his Word, the Son. God’s words are perfect and pure, because God is perfect and pure. As God is, so he speaks. What we do with his Word will be determined by, and will itself determine, who we think God is.

    Does this mean that Christians will never struggle with doubt, sometimes persistently? No. But doubt itself is not a virtuous thing, it is something which we need to struggle with rather than celebrate! I don’t want to discourage Christians here who are struggling with doubt, because it is something which all of us do from time to time – some more than others. It does not make you a bad Christian! But, on the other hand, it is not a good place to rest: pray, search the Scriptures, ask God for wisdom, ask God to reveal himself to you. Seek and you shall find.

    What about difficult parts of the Bible? Does this mean that we will never have any difficulty in understanding the Bible, especially parts of the Old Testament which we find hard? No. There are still hard parts in Scripture, still parts we may struggle with. But ultimately our posture towards Scripture – towards God’s Word – must be one of humble obedience, rather than standing in judgement over Scripture. We must allow God’s Word – all of it – to be his Word. And, perhaps, when we do that, it will actually be the beginning of answering some of those nagging questions. That is certainly my experience.

  • Review: Benefit of the Doubt

    Review: Benefit of the Doubt

    Is doubt a good thing when it comes to the Christian life? Doubt seems to be in vogue in certain circles these days – uncertainty about doctrine, uncertainty about the Bible, uncertainty about all sorts of things. It’s become deeply unfashionable to be certain about anything to do with the Christian faith (well, nearly anything … in my experience of such circles a belief such as the validity of women being priests/bishops/etc is often held with as much certainty as anything I’ve ever seen).

    Anyway, I’ve been wanting to blog about this subject for a while but just haven’t quite had the right opportunity. However, back in January, fellow blogger The Alethiophile asked “What to read in 2015?” and suggested a sort of exchange – if you suggested a book for him to read, he would suggest one for you to read. I suggested to him “Taking God at his Word” by Kevin DeYoung, and he suggested to me “Benefit of the Doubt” by Greg Boyd. Well, I’ve just finished reading it, and it provides the ideal opportunity to talk about doubt!

    The book is subtitled “Breaking the idol of certainty”, and – as you can imagine – his contention is that doubt is actually a good and healthy thing for the Christian. What I’m going to do in this post is to review the book itself, and then follow up in the near future with a blog post about faith and doubt. [I was going to do all of this in one post, but the review went on a bit. Sorry.]

    (more…)

  • Evil and the problem of Stephen Fry

    … or do I mean, Stephen Fry and the problem of evil? Either way, one of the links which has been doing the rounds on Twitter today is that of Stephen Fry talking to Gay Byrne about God, and more specifically, about what he would say to God if Fry died and found out he was wrong about his atheism.

    Stephen Fry’s answer focusses on the problem of theodicy, which is a philosophical term meaning the problem of reconciling evil with a good God. (There would be no need to reconcile evil with an evil God, obviously – the problem only exists if we start out by assuming that God is good).

    Now good/evil and atheism are two subjects I’ve written about here quite often (e.g. whether secular society would be a good thing, and godless ethics), so here I’d just like to focus on one thing. Stephen Fry says that a God who allows (say) bone cancer in children would be “evil”.

    My point is simply this: evil is a problem for everyone, not just Christians. Whether you like it or not we live in a world where children do get bone cancer, where parasites exists, where ‘evil’ exists. I would therefore suggest the question is not simply ‘how could God let this happen?’, but rather ‘which worldview best answers the question of evil?’

    Let’s think briefly about atheism. Atheism demands that there be no God, no purpose in the universe – we are simply the result of an accident, some sort of cosmic blip which caused everything that we see. In other words, you and I are nothing, we are simply the product of blind forces acting in accordance with the laws of an uncaring universe. What that means, and this is what Stephen Fry and others seem to have missed, is that bone cancer and parasites (etc) are completely natural. If atheism is true, then we are exactly the way we are intended to be: evolution just dumped us here, in a place where illness and death exist – the universe has no categories of right or wrong, it just simply is.

    As Richard Dawkins famously said:

    The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference.

    So, my question for Stephen Fry, and others who share his opinion, is – from where does this category of “evil” come from? In the interview, Fry seemed to understand evil to be an objective thing, something which really exists. And yet, that cannot be if atheism is true, if – as Dawkins says – the universe has no design, purpose, etc.

    I believe Fry has essentially contradicted himself in his answer: atheism does not and indeed cannot explain or account for evil. In fact, ironically, I think Fry demonstrates the truthfulness of Christianity in his answer because only the idea of a good God can give rise to the idea of an objective moral good and evil.

    Personally I believe that Christianity is the best explanation that we have for the universe as we perceive it, evil and all. Very, very briefly: (1) evil is an alien intrusion into the world, caused by the Fall (see Genesis 3). This explains why we have a higher ideal for the world than the one we actually see – because creation is not as God originally created it. In other words, illness, death etc are not ‘natural’; (2) despite that, God promises that there is a purpose in all suffering – that “all things” work for the good of those who love him (Romans 8:28, see also Genesis 50:20 and elsewhere); (3) One day God promises to end all suffering (Revelation 7:17). To my mind that is a far more convincing and comprehensive answer to the problem of evil than anything atheism could provide.

    The important thing to remember is that all of us have to give account for the world as we see it: it’s not a question of God being on trial, but rather – every view needs to be put on trial. I find it surprising that someone as intelligent as Stephen Fry should be so blind when it comes to critiquing his own views. Is it too much to ask for a little consistency and rigor?

    Post script: I’m nearly finished working my way through Christopher Ash’s excellent commentary on Job. It deals a lot with precisely this question – how a good God can be reconciled with evil. I hope to be writing a review on it soon.

  • Atheism, Values and Sociopaths

    I’ve read a couple of interesting articles over the last week or so, and both of them deal with atheism and values (as in the sense of morality). The first article was entitled “Famous atheists… reveal where they get their values from“. I found this absolutely fascinating: too often, atheists criticise religion without offering an alternative. As I’ve said before, atheism is not a replacement for religion – and so most of the atheists quoted in that article came out with humanism (which I’ve critiqued recently).

    To my mind, one of the weakest points of atheism or humanism is the idea of values and morality: Bob may look at his fellow humans and decide that they are wonderful and that kindness and compassion are values he wants to live his life by. All well and good. On the other hand, John may look at his fellow humans, decide that they’re all worthless and reason that the best way to go about life is to lie, steal and cheat his way to the top. Which one is ‘right’? Well now, herein lies the problem. There is no ‘right’. As Dostoevsky wrote, “If God does not exist, then everything is permitted.”

    This problem is not simply an academic one,  as the other post I’ve read demonstrates: “What sociopaths reveal to us about the existence of God“. The post is based on the video testimony of a former sociopath called David Wood. It highlights the problem atheism or humanism gets itself into when someone disagrees when it comes to morality: what do you do when someone dissents from morality as our culture tends to understand it? What do you do when someone takes atheism and concludes that we’re all a bunch of atoms, and that you might as well have a bit of fun while you’re on this earth – fun which includes killing other people?

    If you read the article and scroll past the video, you’ll see three arguments presented by different people (Elton Trueblood, Immanuel Kant and C.S. Lewis) about the existence of morality. They argue that morality has to exist in an objective sense, otherwise – essentially – life as we know it would not make sense.

    I think most people would say what David Wood thought was wrong – but is that a logical conclusion for those who believe there is no better standard to appeal to, i.e. that there is no objective morality? I think you could argue (to my mind, correctly) that he was simply being a consistent atheist. I’m curious to know if there was an atheist or humanist argument which could have changed his mind. I suspect not.

  • Sexuality and Friendship: Good news after all?

    FriendshipI recently added a morning conference entitled Human Sexuality: Discerning a Biblical Vision, hosted by the Chelmsford Diocesan Evangelical Association. It was a good morning with three different speakers talking about various issues – theological, pastoral, and practical. One speaker was Lis Goddard, talking about the pastoral issues involved. Of the three sessions, I probably found hers the most practically helpful and thought-provoking.

    One of the complaints I often hear from the LGBT community when discussing this issue is that the church’s traditional position is nothing but ‘bad news’ for gay people. Why would you turn a gospel of good news into a gospel of bad news – forcing people who are attracted to those of the same sex to a life of celibacy? How could God ask anyone to do that, surely it’s impossible for anyone to actually manage?

    I’ve been thinking about this issue recently. What I’ve been beginning to see more clearly is that you can’t simply articulate the traditional, Biblical vision of sexuality without saying anything positive. Let me try and explain.

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  • The Spirituality of Deal or No Deal

    Over the past week or two, I’ve been watching “Deal or No Deal”. It’s not a show I’ve ever watched before, but given that our former next-door-neighbour has been on it, I thought I’d watch to see her on TV. If you’re not familiar with the show, then I’m not going to explain it here – watch an episode online and you’ll get the gist of it within about two minutes. One of the things that’s fascinating about the show (at least to me) is the spiritual or religious element to it.

    You may be thinking, “Spirituality? In Deal or No Deal? How ridiculous!” But let me outline what I’m talking about:

    • There are several ‘superstitions’ in the programme, for example: “The curse of the newbie” – the newest contestant to join the programme is thought to usually have red (high) numbers, so they rarely get chosen. I’ve also seen things like everybody holding hands – as in a seance.
    • More than that, the way the whole show is put together has an air of superstition about it. When someone gets a run of red numbers, people virtually pray for a blue (low) number. The way Noel narrates the show, and the way the contestants talk, the thinking seems to be try really hard and get a blue number. Although ultimately they know they can’t control it, they seem to believe that there is some kind of transcendent destiny about what numbers they pick: if you try hard enough, fate will reward you with a better score.
    • Speaking of reward, the way Noel Edmonds talks about the final amount is entirely geared around getting people to continue. I’ve heard the phrase “life changing amount of money” frequently. Contestants have to have a list of things they want to accomplish if they want to go on the show. In other words, the prize money is seen as something to improve people’s lives: it’s not just money – it’s money with the power to make your life better, and fulfil your dreams.
    • Finally, on more than one occasion Noel Edmonds has called those visiting  (i.e. the audience) ‘pilgrims’.

    So, let’s put this all together. On Deal or No Deal, contestants try to make the right choices / do the right things, in order to manipulate something transcendent / supernatural (i.e. fate), in order to accomplish ‘paradise’ – or at least, (some of) their goals in life. Does that sound at all familiar? That is the message which Deal or No Deal is implicitly sending out, even if it’s not explicit.

    What’s so tragic and yet so depressingly predictable about Deal or No Deal is the way the contestants seem to universally buy into this kind of thinking, even if the boxes are completely random and the contestants have absolutely no control over which they pick. These people seem to think that if they can just manage to choose the right boxes, they’ll get the highest amount of money and their lives will change forever. (If you listen carefully to what Noel Edmonds says, he strongly encourages this way of thinking). What’s sad about this to me is that it’s ‘religion’ all over.

    Religion says, “if you do this well enough you’ll be acceptable to God, and he will bless you”. Look at any religion you like, except for Christianity, and that’s the message that you get: try hard enough, appease the gods, and you will get ‘success’ (however you define it). The point is, it’s all down to your effort. You try hard enough, you obey the rules to a high enough standard, and you get rewarded. It’s like a cosmic vending machine – put the right good deeds into the coin slot, and blessings come out at the bottom. I think that’s not far away from the message of Deal or No Deal.

    This is not what Christians believe. What Deal or No Deal offers is what the Bible calls idolatry – belief in a false god. The show encourages belief in some kind of fate or chance – something which, as we see time and again, is no god at all.

    By contrast, the Christian God is the God who created the universe, the God who does not demand obedience of us for us to be acceptable to Him but freely gives forgiveness and bestows blessing out of love. He is the only the only one who can make a difference. As He says in Isaiah 44:

    I am the Lord,
        the Maker of all things,
        who stretches out the heavens,
        who spreads out the earth by myself,
    who foils the signs of false prophets
        and makes fools of diviners,
    who overthrows the learning of the wise
        and turns it into nonsense,
    who carries out the words of his servants
        and fulfils the predictions of his messengers

    God is the only one who is able to do what he promises. Nothing else is worth believing in.

    I came across this quote from John Stott earlier today, which I thought would be worth quoting here:

    There are many ‘Jesuses’ on offer in the world’s religious supermarket , and many of them are false Christs, distorted Christs, and caricatures … if we want to grow into maturity in Christ, we need a vision of the authentic Jesus . . . Away with our petty, pygmy, puny Jesuses . . . if that is how we think of Christ, no wonder immaturities persist . . . nothing is more important for mature Christian discipleship than a fresh, clear, true vision of the authentic Jesus.’ (John Stott, in a sermon preached in Oak Hill Chapel 2003)

    What Deal or No Deal offers is a distortion of Christ and what he offers. Deal promises fulfilment, happiness, a change of life – but will disappoint in all three areas. Deal enslaves people to money and to the potential that it brings; Christ brings freedom. Christ offers life in all its fulness – and he is the only one who is able to do what he promises. The Deal or No Deal gospel is one which is not worth believing in.

  • God’s Existence and Kalam

    This academic year, I’ve been taking a class on the Doctrine of God. Last week we were studying God’s eternity, and as part of that we looked at the Kalam Cosmological Argument (William Lane Craig’s formulation of it – that link goes through to his website, where you can watch a short video on the Kalam which is actually quite good. He didn’t come up with the original argument himself, but he did extend it).

    The argument itself is pretty simple. It goes like this:

    1. Everything that began to exist has a cause of its existence
    2. The Universe began to exist
    3. Therefore the universe has a cause of its existence.
    4. Causes are either:
      1. Impersonal (without a will) – a previous physical state of affairs which ‘produces’ the new state of affairs. or…
      2. Personal (a will produces the new state of affairs)
    5. So: The universe is either caused by a 4a) or 4b) cause.
    6. But: 4a) causes are not available to cause the universe because by definition there is no previous physical state of affairs.
    7. Further: This personal cause is – in relation to the universe: Transcendent, incorporeal, omniscient and omnipotent.

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