Scruton on the Religion of England

I am reading Roger Scruton's England: An Elegy. It is, as its title suggests, a book lamenting the passing of an English character that once was and now no longer is.

Put very briefly, the Church was domesticated in England, defined, like everything elses, by a place rather than a doctrine or a chain of command. It adapted to the core religous experience of the English, which was of the consecrated nature of their island. Its ceremonies and liturgies sanctified the English language, the English landscape, the English law and institutions and the English Crown - the mysterious corporation sole which is also the supreme fiction in this fairytale. p. 18

The Anglican religion in other words has helped formed the English social imaginery- to define its dreaming. The trouble is, if you shatter the myth, you lose the dreaming. And there is little you can find that will replace it...

Still, this is an explicitly religious view of Anglicanism, and one which shows how deeply unChristian Anglicanism can be ...

Emil Brunner on the Devil

Rationalism has always made short work of the devil - at least in theory!

The Christian Doctrine of Creation and Redemption p. 137

Emil Brunner was my late teacher Bruce Smith's favourite. In many ways he was a lesser Barth, but he wrote in his own distinctive voice. Because, unlike Barth, he believed in the business of apologetics (though he called it somewhat enigmatically 'eristics') his work has dated not so well: the contemporary references and issues have died away somewhat and left Brunner's most urgent work sounding shrill.

However - and this is what Bruce was hoping we would see I think - Brunner writes with faithfulness to the witness of Christ and perception of the depths of the message of the Bible, his great source. I enjoyed this:

The most important truth about the Devil is this: Jesus Christ has conquered him. The Cross is the exact opposit of, and therefore the reaction against the 'fall of Lucifer': the rebellion against God of that being who could not endrue not to be equal with God. The Cross is the Sign of the Devil's defeat, and a continual reminder of Him who conquered him; it is alos the Sign of Him who 'emptied Himself' of His Divine power in order to express in His own person the Divine self-giving to the uttermost. p. 145

All my trials...

This paragraph practically killed me:

If Christ has experienced his trials and temptations and overcome them, then what of the disciples of Jesus? The disciples are not spared further peirasmos; on the contrary, temptation and trial come at them with a renewed force if anything. Thlipsis is to be expected as normal; they are not to be surprised by the coming of the ‘fiery trial’ (1 Peter 4:12). The allusion to Jesus was offered in Hebrews to comfort believers who were in the midst trials. The disciple is thrown back on the human question of the flesh, faith and allegiance to God. Can he himself now overcome the peirasmos, perhaps because he looks with new eyes on the old problem?

That would mean that Jesus merely exemplified the right response to peirasmos. The testimony of the NT is otherwise: Jesus supremely and uniquely passed through this test and tempation. The disciple, who in affliction may even become a martyr, does not witness to his own overcoming of peirasmos but to the victory of Christ in the flesh, in faith and in allegiance to God. That he is tested and remains steadfast even to the death is a witness to Christ’s decisive defeat of the Devil – not to a fresh victory, but only to a sharing in the same original victory that belongs to him.

I just want you to know it is hurting!

Barth on Affliction

Some comments from the older Barth on the Christian expectation of affliction:

If the ministry of witness is the primary determination of Christian existence, and if the ministry of witness unavoidably brings the Christian into affliction, then we have to say that none can be a Christian without falling into affliction. To be sure, we have not to desire or seek or provoke it, as martyrdom or the so-called baptism of blood was coveted in some circles in the early days of Christianity. This could only rest on misunderstanding, as though the bearing of affliction made the Christian a Christian. In fact, it is only the call of Christ, as His calling to the ministry of witness, which can
constitute Christian existence as such....

Barth goes on to note that affliction may indeed come from within the Christian community. But: supposing the world gives the Christian not much trouble? What then?

If...a man is not oppressed by his environment, if he has nothing serious to fear or to suffer at its hands, he has reason carefully to ask at least whether and how far he is genuinely a Christian at all and not fundamentally self-deceived in this respect.

Church Dogmatics, IV.iii, p. 618-9

A thought about Christology

In the temptation/testing of Jesus we do not observe so much the victory of moral rectitude, or finally of one human being who has developed the strength to overcome; but rather we find an example of dependence on the Word of God and trust in his will. He overcomes not by being superhuman, but by being MORE PROPERLY HUMAN. He is victorious by following the human vocation as it was originally given...

Barth and Kant

We cannot deal evasively with Jesus Christ as one does with an idea.

Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics II.ii.660

While Barth concedes that Kant 'has expressed the essential concern of Christian ethic by pointing out that of itself the concept of what is pleasing and useful and valuable does not give us the concept of what is obligatory', he also takes Kant to task for not acknowledging the reality that God's command may indeed result in what is pleasing and good:

The obligation revealed and grounded in the person and work and lordship of Jesus Christ fulfils the idea in all its strictness. It is a categorical imperative, not merely in name, but in fact. And as such - unlike the Kantian imperative - it reveals the fact that to obey it is not merely the highest duty but also the highest good.

Jesus Christ is our categorical imperative!

Introduction to the Bible: some notes IV:Big Love

We had a discussion about polygamy tonight...

There is an excellent article on the matter of polygamy here by Bishop Glenn Davies from Sydney - Is Polygamy a Sin? He makes this comment:

While it is true that legislation existed under Mosaic Law to regulate polygam(Exodus 21:10-11), such legislation did not thereby legitimise polygamy. Rather it is akin to the sufferance exercised by God, a divine permission, which best explains the accounts of polygamy in the Old Testament.

Serena's question however related rather to the felt imbalance: on the one hand, men were allowed this polygamous lifestyle; on the other, those accused of adultery were usually wives rather than husbands. I think the right responses is to say that, as Davies suggests, polygamy is conceded rather than endorsed; that it is a sign of wealth and power rather than a social norm, or seen as a sexual liberterianism of a kind; and that as such it still involved vows and contractual agreements that needed to be honoured...anything else?

To take it further: is the OT unacceptably patriachal? Does the whole approach to polygamy/adultery indicate that the status given to women was somehow offensive to our contemporary sensibilities? Is violence against women not condemned as it should be? Here are a few points in reply:

1. Women share co-humanity with men. Genesis 1 and 2, quite remarkably for their times, assert the full participation of women in the image of God and the flesh of Adam. She is not a lesser being, or a being of a different nature. She stands side by side with Adam.

2. Women are given a voice. One complaint from feminist interpreters is that women are largely silent in the Bible's narrative. But this would be to neglect the Songs of Miriam, Deborah and Hannah in which they are certainly given a voice. The Song of Songs seems to be largely narrated by a female voice - and gives startling (if we are expecting to see patriarchalism everywhere) expression to female sexual desire. God frequently uses women rather than men to show his subversion of men's determination to sort it out for themselves.

3. If women are significant in terms of their roles as wives, mothers, daughters and so on, it is worth saying that the individualism we now value so highly was not a part of the cultural context of the Bible. It is true of men as well that they were fathers, brothers and sons as much as individuals. Sins against individuals had ramifications for their families.

4. The law actually seeks to protect women as vulnerable to abuse by men. It also takes the actions of women just as seriously as men in that they are held responsible for their sin as well.

5. In Leviticus it is true that menstruation leads to a state of ritual uncleanness which needs purification. But it is also true that any male emission leads to the same uncleanness. Note that this does not mean 'sinfulness', by the way. It is a symbolic reminder of the human inability to remain holy.

It helps to remember that, in the OT, there are laws and customs given that are particular to the time and place: not everything should be held as a universal affirmation that this is the right course of action for all times and places. Remember that the OT points ahead to something greater - the need for something more definitive and lasting if the promises of God are to be fulfilled.

Barth and responsibility

This week: a chance to get a handle on Barth's 'divine command' ethics. Very refreshing after wallowing about in rather dry natural law thought. Of course the divine command is the gospel of Jesus Christ (Barth would say 'Jesus', but I am happy to offer him modest correction!) For Barth, ‘responsibility’ sums up the human situation before God who addresses us:

‘It is the idea of responsibility which gives us the most exact definition of the human situation in face of the absolute transcendence of the divine judgment. We live in responsibility, which means that our being and willing, what we do and what we do not do, is a continuous answer to the Word of God spoken to us as a command.’

Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics, ed. Geoffrey William Bromiley and Thomas Forsyth Torrance, trans. Geoffrey William Bromiley and Thomas Forsyth Torrance, 2d ed., 14 vols. (London ; New York: T. & T. Clark International, 2004), II.ii, p. 641.

Northrop Frye and literary criticism

Northrop Frye's 1964 article 'Criticism, Visible and Invisible' contains much wisdom that a couple of generations of postmodern theory has alas greatly erased. He starts with the Platonic distinction between nous, or knowlegde of things, and dianoia, knowledge about them. The problem for the teacher of literature and the critic is that they are limited to teaching about literature - if there is some principle that can link the knower and the known in an essential relation is indedmonstrable. It is only to be accepted as an act of faith, or something like it. There is also much wisdom for theology here: especially vis a vis the parlous state of biblical criticism...

A person who is absorbed whilly by knowledge about something is what ordinarily mean by a pedant. Beyond this is the experience of literature itself, and the goal of this is somthing that we call vaguely the cultivated man, the person for whom literature is a possession, a possession that cannot be directly transmitted, and yet not private, for it belongs in a community.

Criticims cannot make this act of possession for the student; what it can do is weaken those tendencies which within criticism that keep the literary work objective and separated. Criticism, in order to point beyond itself, must be more than merely aware of its limitations: it needs to be actively iconoclastic about itself.

The end of criticism and teaching...is not an aesthetic but an ethical and participating end: for it, ultimately, works of literation are not things to be contemplated but powers to be absorbed.

The piling up of commentary around the major writers of literature may in itself simply be another way of barricading those writers from us.

All poet or critic can do is to hope that somehow, somewhere, and for someone, the struggle to unify and to relate, because it is an honest struggle and not because of any success in what it does, may be touched with a radiance not its own.

Believer's XI?

I was a having a discusson with someone as to whether you could come up with an all-time believing Christian XI to take on the very powerful potential sides that Islam and Hinduism could put on the field. Here's a short list: can you add any?

Jack Hobbs (Eng)
Conrad Hunte (WI)
Brian Booth (Aust, Capt.)
Rt Rev David Shepphard (Eng)
Trevor Goddard (Sth Af)
Jonty Rhodes (Sth Af)
Hansie Cronje (Sth Af) - a controversial selection perhaps!
C.T. Studd (Eng)
Ian Craig (Aust)
Ian Bishop (WI)
Wes Hall (WI)
Neil Hawke (Aust)
Shaun Pollock (Sth Af)
Roger Binny (India)

and others?

Introduction to the Bible: some notes III: Deuteronomy

At the Space Centre in Leicester.

1. 1. In his Antiquities of the Jews written at the end of the first century, Josephus treated his enlightened Gentile audience to an apologetically motivated re-reading of Deuteronomy. In his opinion, the book preserved the politeia not just the nomos of Israel; in other words, torah had not merely a legal or moral sense in Deuteronomy but a constitutional, genuinely political sense.

Josephus intended to prove to his Hellenic audience that Jewish political thought preceded the thought of the Greeks, Plato and Aristotle. And he thought that in Deuteronomy he had found his proof: “a social charter of extraordinary literary coherence and political sophistication”, as McBride puts it. Arguably, Deuteronomy had a direct influence on the development of modern western constitutionalism, especially in the United States.

2. Like a modern novel, Deuteronomy is narrative: it has a character, setting and plot. However, the narrative really only acts as a frame in which the great speeches of Moses are embedded. The frame helps us to remember that we are listening in on Moses’ speech which is directed to a certain group of people in history. The readers of the written text read it over the shoulders of that first audience; clearly, these readers are to take to heart what they read but in the light of their different circumstances. Noticeably, Moses is able to collapse one generation of Israelites into another by addressing them as “you”. He narrates in the second person, so that the effect is immediate. It is not too much to suppose that the readers are meant to, in the same way, see themselves as the people of God likewise addressed by the text. Deuteronomy calls its readers for decision and action: to trust and obey.

3. Moses death also makes necessary the writing down of the law. We read here about the enscripturation of the words of Moses: the beginnings of the idea of Holy Scripture, which will ensure that the voice of Moses teaching and expounding the law of Yhwh himself will continue to ring out in Israel long after his death. Any doctrine of Scripture ought to begin here, with Scripture's emerging self-awareness of - and unembarassment about - the idea of the Word of God taking a written form...

Edwards on Holiness

Holiness is the nature of the Spirit of God, therefore He is called in Scripture the Holy Ghost. Holines, which is as it were the beauty and sweetness of the divine nature, is as much the proper nature of the Holy Spirit as heat is the nature of fire, or as sweetness was the nature of that holy anointing oil which the principal type of the Holy Ghost in the Mosaic dispensation... The Spirit of God so dwells in the heats of the saints that He there, as a seed or spring of life, exerts and communicates Himself, in this His sweet and divine nature, making the soul a partaker of God's beauty and Christ's joy, so that the saint has truly fellowship with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ, in this having the communion or participation of the Holy Ghost. The grace which is in the hearts of the saints is of the same nature with the divine holiness, as much as it is possible for that holiness to be which is infinitely less in degree; as the brigfhtness that is in a diamond which the sun shines upon is of the same nature with the brightness of the sun, but only that it is as nothing to it in
degree... The Religious Affections, p. 129

Wonderful stuff. I wonder what an Orthodox view of divinization might be like in comparison? Notice, however, that the holiness is beautiful and sweet - and not sweetness and beauty which is holy. He is not an aesthete. The holiness of the Christian is truly divine.

Bultmann and electric lights

Bultmann, in his programmatic essay of 1941 'New Testament and Mythology' declaims -

We cannot use electric lights and radios and, in the event of illness, avail ourselves of modern medical and clinical means and at the same time believe in the spirit and wonder world of the New Testament. And if we suppose that we can do so ourselves, we must be clear that we can represent this as the attitude of Christian faith only by making the Christian proclamation unitelligible and impossible for our contemporaries.

He puts a fair challenge forward, though it sounds quite ridiculous to see the electric light as the sign of the enlightenment of modern man vis a vis the mythologies of the New Testament. He would say to us 'at least fundamentalists are consistent'! But the challenge is this: how do we account for the disjunction between our daily existence, where we operate without expectation of the miraculous and on the basis of the scientific world view, and our belief in the New Testament? Don't we all do some demythologising somewhere (unless you live on a mountain in Virginia and handle snakes)?

Bultmann's confidence in his own mastery of the past never seems to waver. He seems unaware that he is in effect re-mythologising the New Testament by casting it in terms of human existence and authenticity... Like Spong, he is remorselessly sceptical, except of his own scepticism. It is interesting, too, how he shares Spong's concern for apologetics/evangelism: that the modern person, busily switching his electric light bulb on and off, and listening to the wireless, despises the gospel as it is couched in mythological language.

Lash lashes Dawkins

Theologian Nicholas Lash does an absolute number on Richard Dawkins right here. h/t Sam.

Death on the battlefield

In and after the 1914-18 War the language of martyrdom was applied to the sacrifice of the young men who died for England on the battlefield. Using this langauge no doubt brought great comfort to the bereaved - and in that sense I don't want to be to quick to judge it. In particular, the text that features again and again in memorials is John 15:13: ‘greater love hath no man than this’. A well-known hymn from the period, ‘O Valiant Hearts’ by Sir John Arkwright, makes the connection between patriotism and religion chillingly explicit:

Still stands his Cross from that dread hour to this,
like some bright star above the dark abyss;
still, through the veil, the Victor's pitying eyes
look down to bless our lesser Calvaries.

These were his servants, in his steps they trod,
following through death the martyred Son of God:
Victor, he rose; victorious too shall rise
they who have drunk his cup of sacrifice.

Humanae Vitae - Paul VI

I am reading Humanae Vitae for a seminar this afternoon on Natural Law. It is a stirring document, as many of the papal encyclicals are. But this is probably the most controversial one of them all. Some passages that caught my eye (in blue, with my comments in black):







This kind of question requires from the teaching authority of the Church a new and deeper reflection on the principles of the moral teaching on marriage—a teaching which is based on the natural law as illuminated and enriched by divine Revelation.

I think this is interesting: first we have to establish the teaching authority of the Church as the interpreter of the natural law. Secondly, the teaching of this encyclical BEGINS with natural law as illumined by Revelation, not the other way around.


No member of the faithful could possibly deny that the Church is competent in her magisterium to interpret the natural moral law. It is in fact indisputable, as Our predecessors have many times declared, (l) that Jesus Christ, when He communicated His divine power to Peter and the other Apostles and sent them to teach all nations His commandments, (2) constituted them as the authentic guardians and interpreters of the whole moral law, not only, that is, of the law of the Gospel but also of the natural law. For the natural law, too, declares the will of God, and its faithful observance is necessary for men's eternal salvation. (3)



Again the authority of the papacy as inheritors of the apostolate and thus the true interpreters of the moral law is asserted. This is a strategy to protect from arbitrariness. 'Necessary for men's eternal salvation'? Hmm...




With regard to man's innate drives and emotions, responsible parenthood means that man's reason and will must exert control over them.

A curious feature of Thomistic thought: the emphasis on 'reason' in anthropology, over and against the other drives and emotions. Maybe not so curious: it was interesting to see Kant saying exactly the same thing.

Responsible parenthood, as we use the term here, has one further essential aspect of paramount importance. It concerns the objective moral order which was established by God, and of which a right conscience is the true interpreter

Here 'right conscience' comes in. Interestingly Cardinal Pell of Sydney has talked about this 'conscience' idea in order to defend it from rampant individualism. He says conscience must be taught rightly and is not a somehow inward part of the human sealed off from church teaching. I think this reveals the problem with the conscience thing, though I am sympathetic to Pell's reasons.



The fact is, as experience shows, that new life is not the result of each and every act of sexual intercourse. God has wisely ordered laws of nature and the incidence of fertility in such a way that successive births are already naturally spaced through the inherent operation of these laws. The Church, nevertheless, in urging men to the observance of the precepts of the natural law, which it interprets by its constant doctrine, teaches that each and every marital act must of necessity retain its intrinsic relationship to the procreation of human life.



Strangely Paul doesn't give us much about this 'intrinsic relationship' idea. It is unexplained really... is it to do with the intention to procreate? Well, no, because he will allow for natural birth control later on. You could complain to, that the 'wisely ordered laws of nature' is a problematic teaching: women die in childbirth; successive births aren't 'spaced', etc. That is, the curse has had an effect on the natural world, and it is now not as 'natural' as it once was.

...the fundamental nature of the marriage act, while uniting husband and wife in the closest intimacy, also renders them capable of generating new life—and this as a result of laws written into the actual nature of man and of woman.



I take it he means our bodily nature and desires for one another have the nature of laws. How do they become 'laws' from being our actual nature?

If therefore there are well-grounded reasons for spacing births, arising from the physical or psychological condition of husband or wife, or from external circumstances, the Church teaches that married people may then take advantage of the natural cycles immanent in the reproductive system and engage in marital intercourse only during those times that are infertile, thus controlling birth in a way which does not in the least offend the moral principles which We have just explained.

This is the get-out clause and I have never understood it. To me, this is like a vegetarian eating meat substitute. The rhythm method is still a matter of birth 'control', is it not?



No one can, without being grossly unfair, make divine Providence responsible for what clearly seems to be the result of misguided governmental policies, of an insufficient sense of social justice, of a selfish accumulation of material goods, and finally of a culpable failure to undertake those initiatives and responsibilities which would raise the standard of living of peoples and their children.

Well, fair enough. The whole population control thing has a very sinister side to it.

Tradition and the Individual Talent

In his exceptional essay 'Tradition and the Individual Talent', Eliot writes:

‘The emotion of art is impersonal. And the poet cannot reach this impersonality without surrendering himself wholly to the work to be done. And he is not likely to know what is to be done unless he lives in what is not merely the present, but the present moment of the past, unless he is conscious, not of what is dead, but of what is already living.’

Eliot's enemy is the Romantic view of poetry as self-expression: as the expression of a particular personality. Eliot the modernist say exactly the opposite: that truly great art is interested in dissolving personalities and immersion in the tradition. The poet must engage in an act of self-immolation before the tradition and the work - the tradition not just as the voice of the past in the past but tradition as the 'present moment of the past'. He must offer himself to the voice of the tradition and lose his own; but then, he will find he has his own back.

What is interesting is that this is a kind of a 'martyrdom of the poet'; or at least, a self-sacrifice of the poet to the greater voice of the tradition.

Violence, the OT and teaching children

In teaching the Old Testament to children in the 7-15 age range I have myself in the past emphasised the drama and action of the narratives. They are really well told stories and they make for good reading - and frankly, anything to get kids to read the Bible will do.

But I have noticed a tendency to glorify the gory aspects of it, or, to make them cartoonish so that kids will find them appealing in some way.
As an ad for one Bible for boys puts it:
Finally, a Bible just for boys! Discover gross and gory Bible stuff...

Shouldn't we be teaching our kids to be troubled by the destruction of Jericho and Ai? The terrible fate of household of Achan? The highly symbolic violence of the book of Judges? And so on? Not that these should be edited, or seen as in some way compromising the character of God, but it just troubles me that we teach these texts as if they are Itchy and Scratchy cartoons ...

Introduction to the Bible: some notes II

Some further thoughts on discussions we had last night.

1. If you want something really good to read, D. Clines' The Theme of the Pentateuch is pretty good, though a little pricey I notice.
His basic thesis is this:

The theme of the Pentateuch is the partial fulfilment—which implies also the partial non-fulfilment—of the promise to or blessing of the patriarchs. The promise or blessing is both the divine initiative in a world where human initiatives always lead to disaster, and a re-affirmation of the primal divine intentions for man.

This is a pretty good summary. Notice how, as we suggested last night, the first five books of the bible propel us forward into the future. They suggest that more is to come: though there is a partial fulfilment, there is still much of what God has promised left outstanding.

2. We talked a bit about 'covenants': Noah, Abraham, Moses/Israel, David, (Jeremiah). Could you also call the Garden of Eden a 'covenant' arrangement? Certainly, the structure of a covenant is there, with an act of sheer grace - creation - followed by a stipulation which is really a designation of the freedom of Adam and Eve to carry out their task within the parameters that God sets and under his protection. What do you think? An old teacher of mine, Bill Dumbrell, in his excellent book Covenant and Creation reckons that this is a covenant pure and simple. (You might also see his truly excellent book The Faith of Israel, which gives a great summary of every OT book. )

3. The question was raised: 'since the human situation appears to degenerate so quickly after Noah's time, what does the flood achieve?'

It's a fair enough question. First of all, I would say that the little story about the angelic love affairs with human women suggests an almost demonic condition of the pre-flood world. This infection of the lineage of humanity was broken by the flood. So, in that sense it could be argued that the flood provided a decisive break but also a continuity of God's plan. (NB - is this what is meant by the 'spirits in prison' in 1 Peter 3:8? Could be!)

Secondly, the NT sees the flood as a great demonstration of the pattern and scope of God's judgement on the earth AND his plan of salvation - see 2 Peter 2 for example:

5if he did not spare the ancient world when he brought the flood on its ungodly people, but protected Noah, a preacher of righteousness, and seven others ...9if this is so, then the Lord knows how to rescue godly men from trials and to hold the unrighteous for the day of judgment, while continuing their punishment.

Outline of 'you' project

Here is a complete linked list of the chapters for easy access:

What, anxious? Me?
It's like a great play
What you are not

Stuff
You and your stuff
To have and to hold
My precious
Naked I came

Dreams
Dreams
What do we dream about
Frustration
Being there
Dream of God
Dreaming with God

Body
Tattoo you
Tattoo you two
pinocchio perhaps
Not your own
Body piercing saved my life
Slim for him?

Life
Life in Kolding
Our love of life
Heavy breathing or, the kiss of life
Image problem
What's so good about it?

Child
Mother's day
honour
Please, don't mention the outside world
Dear Woman, here is you Son
Some Last Words

Dying
The Gift of Death
On the run
Alas poor yorrick
A hollow death
Real Dignity

Arise
Heavy Matter
Post human future
Waiting, Waiting
At the blast of the trumpet
Echoes in eternity

Twisted
The evil next door
Man hands on misery to man
Twisted
victims, perpertrators

Touched
Touch me
Touching story
Untouchable
The ooze
Dead woman walking
Go in peace

Man/Woman
The great disintegration
Help
Fit
Gentle ribbing
shameless
Of frogs and snails
this is my lover
here comes the bride

Speech, speech
you oughta talk
the broken sigh
wise words
lies lies lies
bragging flattery gossip

Freedom
cos I'm free
atomised
underpants on the outside
the tasks of freedom
declaration of independence
free man
living in freedom

Real Human
human-being: a guide for perplexed
risky business
into temptation
true humanism