The Life of Jesus - CPX

The guys at CPX (the Centre for Public Christianity) have really excelled themselves with the new Life of Jesus package. The Life of Jesus screened on Australia's Channel 7 at Easter time in an hour long format, and I was impressed then by the production values, the clarity and depth of the presentation and the brilliantly constructed programme. The DVD comes with two and half hours of material, much of which is shot on location in the Holy Land. Alongside the 'life of Jesus' stuff comes a series of shot explanations of various questions such as 'Is there a God?' and 'Can you be good without God?'

The Life of Jesus comes with a very useful guidebook which is stuffed full of information, scripts, questions and notes, meaning that the DVD can operate as a six-part course. I think it would be fun to do in a class or group. It is sophisticated and serious enough to provide a real challenge at an adult level while being clear and simple enough that senior high school groups could easily use it.

The great benefit of the course is that it provides an antidote to the crackpot theories that make so much headway in the media. John Dickson's strategy is to show that even liberal-minded or non-religious scholars agree on the basic outline of Jesus' life - the impression given sometimes in the media that almost nothing can be known of him is quite wrong.

But more than this, it presents an account of Jesus the man that is plausible without being overstated. It takes us in to the story of his life, presenting it too us not only a historical reasonable narrative, but as a story that has life-changing implications for everyone.

As a theologian, I am quite suspicious of an apologetic strategy that relies on historical proof. The Life of Jesus uses an evidentialist type of apologetic, and unashamedly so. But there is no suggestion that just providing this evidence is enough to instill faith. And it is the case that quite often theologians have conceded the historical ground to the sceptics prematurely. The Life of Jesus shows this brilliantly.

Furthermore, the plethora of scallywag accounts of Jesus' life is allowed to grow because theologians have said 'it doesn't matter'. No - it does matter, theologically, that we can go Israel and see with our own eyes the ground on which Jesus walked. He was not a fantasy, or a principle. He was a man of flesh and blood and bone, and as far as any man of flesh and blood and bone may be traced in history so we should expect and in fact rejoice that traces of Jesus' presence among us are there to be found.

Rowan Williams raps with Ricky Gervais

This is an intriguing encounter from an apologists point of view. Mainly because Gervais is floundering and inarticulate, and because Williams just waits. Gervais comes across I think as typical of people one meets: wants to own to the word 'spiritual' and also makes it clear just how moral he is, but 'I am living my life'. He also does the typical race from one question to the next without waiting for an answer. I think the best moment was when Williams says 'is fundamentalist religion the only type of religion?' and Gervais goes on to say something along the lines of, 'well, if God exists he would be full on wouldn't he?' This IS quite a revelation I think - it is a similar line of attack to that of Dawkins. He almost refuses to talk seriously any kind of faith but the most fundamentalist kind, so that he can reject it.

Could Williams have done any better than he does here? I think he plays it quite well to score a 3-0 victory in the face of Gervais's blather. It is hard to play such opposition without sinking to the same level. Gervais is becoming more and more like his alter ego David Brent...





He then went on to an interview where he was reported as having denied the nativity story. What in fact he denied was the extra-biblical legendary materials: the big star, the stable, the donkey, that there were THREE kings (when there were certainly three gifts, but who knows how many Magi) and so on. Then he said you could become a Christian without believing the virgin birth, though he himself believed it. Scarcely controversial - but I guess when you have a name for being controversial, people hear what they expect to hear.

Still reeling from reading Kant

I am still somewhat agape at the sheer scope of what Kant attempts in his Groundwork and the impressive rationality of it all. One thought that came to me was this: in debating against atheists, I have noticed Christian apologists still resort to the argument from morality. It is something like this (actually it isn't an argument so much as a challenge or observation): atheists have no grounds for a particular morality; yet human beings have a strong moral instinct. So: if you are an atheist, you can say something is morally wrong, but not consistently.

But Kant was attempting to find exactly these grounds. In other words, he claimed to have found a way in which moral truth was discoverable by reason alone, with or without divine help. By means if the categorical imperative, Kant was (he thought) able to put morality on a consistent footing that enables a moral discussion to ensue on the basis of rationality. The immoral would also be the irrational, on this basis.

Now, there are problems here of course, but I am just painfully aware that Christian apologists don't seem to address this claim to have found a universal basis for morality aside from divine revelation. Mind you, their opponents don't seem to be very good at putting the argument back to Christians either...

The other thing from Kant was this. Kant tries to sheer all manner of self-interest away from moral consideration. Intentions must be as pure as possible to bring about a truly moral act. As he says:

From love of humankind I am willing to admit that even most of our actuons are in confimrity with duty; but if we look more closely at the intentions and aspiratons in them we everywhere come upon the dear self, which is always turning up; and it is on this their purpose is based, not on the strict command of duty, which would often require self-denial.

My problem with his instance on the lack of self-interest in creation is that this actually dehumanises the moral agent. Why should self-interest always be corrupting in this way, so long as it is not the wrong kind of self-interest? This is what Augustine might say: one ought to love oneself IN GOD, just as one ought to love one's neighbour in God. The right kind of benefits accruing need not entirely sour a moral act. It is impossible to love, in a way, without some form of self-interest. Without self-interest of a kind, love itself disappears... it becomes merely formal, or dutiful, and not loving.

'I am not a religious person'

When a person says: 'I am really not a religious person', what are we to understand them to mean? I am tempted to say back 'I am not religious either'. I don't see myself as a religious person, but I take it that they would usually think I was.

In a way I want to disbelieve them though: aren't all human beings religious in some way? Aren't we homo adorans?

I guess I am asking: 'what is meant usually by 'religious' in the sentence 'I am not a religious person'?

Bruce D Marshall - Martyrdom and Truth

A number of authors I have encountered - namely Cavanaugh, Vanhoozer and DB Hart - stress the importance of martyrdom as the form of Christian truth-telling. Martyrdom is of missiological and apologetic importance - of course. It is a witness of a particular kind. In the postmodern as in the premodern world it is the ultimate proof that anyone can offer.

Bruce D Marshall in his book Trinity and Truth joins the ranks of the above. Is focus here is a epistemology. Here is fascinating excerpt in which he compares and contrasts two methods of establishing truth - scientific experiment and Christian practice:

The parallel between Christian practice and scientific experiment is, to be sure, inexact. As the martyr’s willingness to die for her faith in Christ most vividly shows, undertaking the life of obedience for which the gospel calls goes hand in hand with being convinced that the gospel is true, while scientists undertake experiments precisely in order to become convinced (or dissuaded) that an otherwise hypothetical set of beliefs is true. Failure of predicted results, moreover, tends to disconfimr the theory which underwrote the predictions, while Christians think they may and should believe the gospel precisely in the face of their own abject failures to live in a way congruent with it.

But the partial disanalogy apparently fails to bear on the relevant similarity of Christian beliefs to scientific hypotheses: the successful practice of the Christian community and its members might be explained otherwise than by the truth of the beliefs held by those who engage in the practice. An objector to the pragmatic thesis might agree to a significant extent with the Christian community's description of a practice...and might agree that the practice is good and right, but might propose a different, indeed incompatible, account of why the practice goes on and succeeds... (p. 186ff)

So, martyrdom is testimony, and as persuasive testimony perhaps as such there is: but it is not proof unless you already inhabit the world-view and practices of the martyr.

Marshall concludes:

Christians will inevitably encounter a kind of epistemic affliction, because they not only hold true, but insist on treating as epistemically primary across the board, beliefs which will be rationally contestable until the end of time…The affliction which goes with holding these beliefs may go beyond having to avoid giving them up. For the martyr’s willingness to die for her faith in Christ, a perseverance no less arduous for being whilly the Spirit’s gift, is rightly reserved the highest praise. p. 216

To summarise: the truth hurts. (Actually, is this a good title for my dissertation? Martyrdom - the Truth Hurts)