Webster and Inspiration - Verbal Inspiration

I found Webster's book Holy Scripture - A Dogmatic Sketch a very stimulating little book. He mounts a defence - or a restatement - even of the much maligned doctrine of verbal inspiration (chapter 1. p. 30ff.):

'Here we reach the particala veri (ie, limited truth) of the notion of verbal inspiration. Because verbal inspiration was routinely misconstrued (sometimes by its defenders and nearly always by its detractors) as entailing divine dictation, the notion of inspriation has been 'personalised' or 'de-verbalised' and redefined as authorial illumination. This distancing of inspiration from the verbal character of the text is considered to ease the difficulties of offering an account of inspiration by thinking of the words of the text as a purely human arena of activity, whether of authors, redactors or tradents. But the result is again docetic. The implied distinction between (inspired) content and creaturely form is awkward, and very easily makes authorial (or perhaps community) consciousness or experience the real substance of the text, of which the words are the external expressions. This is uncomfortably close to those styles of eucharistic theology in which the sacrament is considered to be a transaction between the gospel and the religious consciousness, to which visible forms are accidently attached. No less than consecration, inspiration concerns the relation of God's communication and specific creaturely forms;
inspiration, that is, involves words...' (p. 37-8)

(Is he thinking of Calvin's view of the Supper here? hmm...) He continues:

'Properly understood, 'verbal' inspiration does not extract words from their field of production or reception, does not make the text a less than historical entity, or make the text itself a divine agent. Nor does it entail neglect of the revelatory presence of God in favour of an account of originary inspiration. It simply indicates the inclusion of texts in the sanctifying work of the Spirit so that they may become fitting vessels of the treasure of the gospel.'
(p. 38)

This 'may become' is not just a case of the Scripture becoming the word of God as it is read by the church: he is definitely ascribing to the process of the text coming into being an inspiration by the Holy Spirit.

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.

Application in sermons

Preachers find the hardest part of the sermon to craft that bit of the end. No wait: actually, I think we preachers would find it hard if we spent any significant time doing it! Also, I have to say we do a rather one dimensional job of it when we do get to this point.

I was prompted by a youth work book I once read to think of the application as touching on three aspects - because 'spiritual development/maturity' also ought to touch on these three aspects. They are:

KNOWING
FEELING
DOING

We need to move from knowledge about God to a deeper knowledge OF God himself.
We need to move from our experiences of God to a deep affection for him.
We need to move from legalism and disobedience into a life overflowing with good works.

Now, each sermon doesn't have to touch on each of these. But it is a helpful guide, to ask at the end: what did I ask people to do (or as a listener, what was I asked to do) in terms of each of the three aspects. And most sermons could touch on each of these in some way.

Gender-neutral language

There has been some discussion recently at Sydney Anglicans about gender-neutral or inclusive language and bible translation. Some are holding out, saying that the tide of trendy political correctness is turning, and that we should hold on to the use of 'men' to mean 'humankind'. Certainly, the structure of the English language makes this more convenient.

I remember thinking this through some years ago. What changed it all for me was reading an early 1970s study (so pre-the 'gender neutral language revolution' of the 1980s) that suggested that indeed a majority of women felt excluded when gender-exclusive language was used. Suffice it to say, I haven't been able to track that study down this morning... I read originally in (shock, horror) a book. Remember them?

Since much gender exclusive language is unneccessary to make the meaning absolutely clear, and since I don't wish to give offence except over the gospel (which is offensive enough and does need my offensive behaviour to add to it) I don't think obliging at this point is too much to ask. Indeed, it may even be a good thing: after all, Christians have led the way since the beginning in treating and accepting women as fully human. Shame we have to drag the chain now. And if many, many women report that they feel excluded by such language (and probably the ones NOT in church, so clergymen don't go off and ask your wives!) then it seems important to make a change. True, I went to uni in the late (as opposed to early) 80s and 90s when this was a cause in a way it isn't today, perhaps. But I - even I - find it embarassing and jarring and distracting when I hear an old 1978 NIV passage read out that translates anthropos as 'men' or adds a 'man' when it is unnecessary.

Especially, I feel that this is imperative for those of us who hold more complementarian positions on women's ministry. The accusation is always going to come that this theological position is just a mask for sexism. If it isn't, then wherever genuine sexism is present we need to eradicate it and to show that we are serious about it. This isn't caving in to the culture anymore than having proper procedures for dealing with child abuse is caving in to the culture... don't you think?

[Added later] - It seems to me there are different levels of acceptability for gendered language. You can slip in an occassional 'man' or 'mankind' (meaning 'the human race') and no-one seems to mind too much, especially if you are quoting ('one giant leap for mankind'). But using the male pronoun to represent both is much less acceptable - though a nice alternative to the gendered pronoun in English is harder to find.

A bore and a boar....

Do they know it's Christmas?

It has taken me 23 years to think these thoughts but:

why would people in chiefly Muslim countries care whether it was Christmas or not?

and

Does it strike you that Bono's line in the song,

namely 'tonight thank God it's them instead of yooooooooooouuuuuu'

is an absolutely awful sentiment?

Apocalyptic Amillennialism?

From my RTR article 'Left Behind? Christian Eschatology and Society in the Age of Terror' vol 63, 2004.

...We take issue with the eschatologies of pre- and post-millennialists, Moltmann and the liberation theologians. Amillennialism seems a more biblically satisfactory position, although it has a tendency to over-spiritualise the Kingdom’s presence and to embrace a smug ecclesiastical imperialism.[1] However, the re-emergence of the apocalyptic in twentieth century theology, in the tradition of Luther, has restored balance to the biblical horizon. Apocalyptic literature of both Testaments focuses on the sovereignty of God over the cosmos and history, his vindication of his people (involving resurrection) in righteous judgment and his “supernatural” and dramatic intervention in history to bring these things to pass. There is a radical discontinuity between the present, which features a great struggle between good and evil, and the apocalyptic future. The apocalyptic literature of the New Testament picks up the universalism of other passages which speak of the cosmic scope of God’s redemptive act in Christ (1 Cor 15:22, Col 1:19-20, Phil 2:9-11, I Tim 2:4-6), and at the same time paints a clearly separationist picture which rightly reflects the Biblical vision of God’s eternal justice. A decisive irruption into history is indeed necessary for the fulfillment of the times. Even historicist (and Hegelian) Wolfhart Pannenberg admits:

Nothing less than a new heaven and a new earth (Rev 21:1; cf 20:11 and Isa 65:17) is demanded as a prerequisite for the definitive actualizing of the kingdom of God.[2]

[1] Bloesch, op.cit., p.197
[2] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology, op.cit., p.584

Criteria for success?

An important task for the writer of a thesis is to set himself some criteria by which the success of his argument might be rated.

In my case, I am setting up my argument as a response to a Rushdie-led attack on the life which is given shape by Christian martyrdom. How will I be able to measure my success in this?

1 - If I can show that Rushdie has mis-described Christian martyrdom, or at least, that his account of martyrdom, while fitting for some religious and even some Christian martyrdoms, does not fit for authentic Christian martyrdom. It is just not accurate. So, his critique won't stick, though we may welcome the chance to clarify things.

2 - Further, Rushdie's concerns for human life and identity that he thinks are corrupted or negated by Christian martyrdom are actually affirmed by them. The human aspirations and longings that he records are actually fulfilled or better fulfilled in the Christian self-understanding.

3 - But: we don't necessarily want to accept the terms of the discussion as set by Rushdie and others. My aim is not to win according to the terms he sets, but to through his terms into question. This I fear happens with a number of theological accounts of martyrdom where the concept is so broadened to include people who die for liberal or democratic or tolerant values. To include someone that Rushdie accepts is not my idea of victory. Gandhi was not a Christian martyr, however noble he was. Neither do I want to be reduced to a consequentialist debate. That would undo the whole point of martyrdom, which is a witness to 'another' reality.

4 - If I can show that the martyr's life and death has an explanatory power that continues to be compelling for human life, then I will have succeeded (I like to imagine). That is, to show that martyrdom is a form of 'piety', but that 'piety' is utterly transformed under the acid of martyrdom, so that we accept the challenge of the Rushdies but do not accept entire their framing of the challenge...

The Census - Luke 2:1

Luke starts off his Christmas narrative by locating it quite precisely in time and space: 'it happened in those days that there came a decree from Caesar Augustus to make a census of all the inhabited world'. This was, as Luke explains, the first census during the time that Quirinius was governor of Syria.

Why do governors make censuses? I suppose in the democratic-bureaucratic states in which most of us live, the act of census making appears perfectly innocent - it allows the government to better allocate resources for health care and policing and roads, for example. Or at least we are able to overlook its more sinister possibilities because of the benefits we receive. But for the ancient world the act of making a census was not for the benefit of the ruled so much as for the ruler. An accurate census meant more effective and lucrative taxation. It meant quite clearly that the known world was under the Roman thumb. It was an act of peace-making, in a way: because it meant the subduing and ordering of the peoples of the earth. It was surveillance as best the ancient world could do it. This was the mighty and divine Augustus, declaring that the pax Romanum had come upon the earth.

And, as governmental decrees tend to, it meant a bureaucratic inconvenience for the little person on the fringe. Even heavily pregnant women had to make a journey in order to fall in with the Roman programme.

Publication of some reviews: Anvil and Churchman

Hey, I have had two reviews published just recently. One is of Vanhoozer's The Drama of Doctrine and finds itself in the latest Anvil 24/3.

The other is in Churchman 121/4 and is of the first two volumes of Goldingay's Old Testament Theology.

Just thought you might like to know...

The Men Who Stare At Goats

Hearing reports about CIA agents torturing terror suspects chills me to the bone. Turns out this 'conspiracy' had the ring of truth after all. It reminded me of this review I wrote a couple of years back:


After The Da Vinci Code I have learnt not to trust books that begin by saying that “this is a true story.” It is pretty much an admission by the author that what is contained within the covers of the work is, well, unbelievable. It has a plausibility problem.

And I am not prone to believe conspiracy theories. Yes, the Apollo moon landings did occur. No, the CIA and the Mafia didn’t shoot JFK: Lee Harvey Oswald did it.

But the more bizarre elements of Jon Ronson’s The Men Who Stare At Goats are anchored in a disturbing reality that we know to be the truth. The shocking images from the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq were too weird, too perfectly calculated to do psycho-sexual and cultural damage, to be merely a case of a couple of bored, barely literate prison guards having a lark.

What mentality, what tactic, lead to the pyramids of naked prisoners? Recent reports of Australian Mamdouh Habib being splattered with the menstrual blood of prostitutes while in captivity at Guantanamo Bay are entirely in keeping with the species of prisoner interrogation displayed at Abu Ghraib.

Ronson’s story is a meandering series of interviews with ex-army personnel, false trails, intriguing rumours and investigative journalism. He struggles to make sense of it all, a feeling I, for one, share. One way of reading the story is this: that following the embarrassment of Vietnam the US military has invested heavily in alternative forms of warfare, including experiments in the paranormal. According to Ronson’s sources, they even had men trying to kill goats just by staring at them. That would, I guess, give an army a certain advantage over the enemy.

In the 1970s, Vietnam vet and lieutenant colonel named Jim Channon wrote a book called The First Earth Battalion Operations Manual. Channon imagined an army of the New Age, whose soldiers “would carry with them into hostile countries ‘symbolic animals’ such as baby lambs” (p.41). They would greet the enemy with “sparkly eyes” and give them an “automatic hug.” Ambient music would be broadcast to pacify the enemy. He presented his ideas to the top brass…

Only, once the military regained its confidence, it saw that some of the ideas in the manual could be used to shatter people rather than to heal them. Loud and repetitive music (rather than noodling ambient sounds) has been used by the Psychological Operations (PsyOps) group in Panama, at the Waco siege in Texas, in Iraq and at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. The theme tune to children’s programme Barney the Dinosaur was blasted at some Iraqi detainees in a shipping container in the desert, as well as some Sesame Street favourites. Ronson records a hilarious interview with composer of some of the melodies used, who considers claiming royalties; and then he visits the PsyOps HQ to inspect their CD collection. They have Avril Lavigne, apparently.

Are the US military really experimenting with parapsychology and having battalions of men stare at goats? Some of the people Ronson interviews seem to have the obsessive intensity of the truly unhinged and lack credibility. But then – they would, wouldn’t they?

There certainly are some pretty unorthodox methods being used by the US to wage war and interrogate captives. Would it really be surprising if it were true?

The point is that the War on Terror particularly and the defence of freedom generally have produced an odd kind of paranoia among some people who have the power and resources to put their whacky ideas into practice.

But there is a blindness to see that this is in itself terror of another kind. The symbolic terror of the destruction of the two towers has its counterpart in the utter shaming of the bodies and minds of these hapless captives. The ideological madness of the religious extremists on the one side is well matched by this furtive nuttiness on the side of the forces of freedom. It makes George W. Bush’s appeal (in his second inaugural address) to a common humanity made in the image of the creator ring more than a little hollow.

The Sin of Impiety

What disturbed the pagans about the Christians?

That in itself is a tricky historical question. But, broadly speaking, the first Christians stood accused of impiety. That word or its opposite is actually used often in the martyr-acts in the interrogation of the suspects, and despite the Christians protesting that in fact they were dutiful citizens in good standing with everybody, they could not go forward and sacrifice to the Emperor in order to maintain the peace. That is to say, their lack of worshipful regard for the spirits that were held to be the guarantors of social order and agricultural fruitfulness caused their neighbours no end of worry. Tertullian famously wrote (in Apologeticum 40): "If the Tiber rises so high it floods the walls, or the Nile so low it doesn't flood the fields, if the earth opens, or the heavens don't, if there is famine, if there is plague, instantly the howl goes up, "The Christians to the lion!" What, all of them? to a single lion?" Ha ha. Christians were labelled atheists because of their impiety.

I have mentioned Jeffrey Stout's definition of piety before:

Piety ... is not to be understood primarily as a felling, expressed in acts of devotion, but rather as a virtue, a morally excellent aspect of character. It consists in just or appropriate response to the sources of one's existence and progress through life. Family, political community, the natural world, and God are all said to be sources on which we depend, sources to be acknowledged appropriately.

We need to forget the use of piety in its strictly religious sense. In Stout's sense, there remains today a properly social piety: that 'just or appropriate response to the sources of one's existence and progress'. These may be entirely material: so, the nostrums of liberal order - free speech, rights, freedom of/from religion, equality and so on, need to be treated with due regard. They can even be sung about. It is interesting that 'good luck' or 'fate' still looms large in contemporary vision of piety, since whatever good fortune we enjoy is a result of the turn of the wheel in our favour. And so, modern culture is replete with sacrifices to fortune - in the form of gambling and divinisation; and also defences erected against the arbitrary turns of the wheel (life insurance anyone?). Also, the almost sacred regard family enjoys, even today, comes unexpectedly to those who continually rail against its demise. Environmentalism (rightly) appeals to piety in this sense.

Is it fair to say that Christians stand once again accused of impiety: for we give scant regard to 'luck', or ought not to. More importantly perhaps, we with other religious people threaten the fragile and hard won peace of our communities by bringing our beliefs to the table. Or, by becoming another special interest lobby group we cut ourselves off from our community and the duties of membership in it. We deny the absoluteness of family ties (or ought to); we shockingly tell young people that they ought not to pursue material goals or pleasure as their priority. By suggesting that all religions are not the same we again stand accused of threatening the social order, of inflaming 'religious hatred' or whatever...

Charles Taylor - A Secular Age III

Taylor's book is studded with great insights, and written with the lucidity of a chat over coffee. I have interrupted the story of the switch from the porous self to the buffered self to dip into the book at more random places today. This stood out, given my recent thinking about matters papal:

The secular age is schizophrenic, or better, deeply cross-pressured. People seem at a safe distance from religion; and yet they are very moved to know that there are dedicated believers, like Mother Teresa. The unbelieving world, well used to disliking Pius XII, was bowled over by John XXIII. A Pope just had to sound like a Christian, and many immemorial resistances melted...It's as though many people who don't want to follow want nevertheless to hear the message of Christ, want it to be proclaimed out there. The paradox was evident in the response to the late Pope. Many people were inspired by John Paul's public perpatetic preaching, about love, about world peace, about international economic justice. They are thrilled that these things are being said. But even many Catholics among his admireres didn't feel that they must follow his all his moral injunctions... (p. 727)

What does this mean for a diocese at mission, like the Sydney diocese?

On the Religion Report talking about Benedict's encyclical

You can listen to a discussion I had with the ABC's Stephen Crittenden on Benedict XVI's latest encyclical here. It is about 44 mins into the programme.

Buffered self vs porous self

Sounds kind of painful, doesn't it? But this is the way Charles Taylor describes the difference between the outlook of the individual of 1500 and the contemporary person.

The pre-modern self is 'porous' because it thought of itself as deeply situated in an enchanted world and open to being influenced and signified by forces emanating from that world.

The 'buffered' self of modernity considers its purposes and meanings as arising not from without but from within.

Take emotions for example: a depressed porous self may consider himself prey to cosmic realities that can affect us. Suffering from melancholy, he may cite the presence of black bile which is not the cause of melancholy: it IS melancholy. The depression is part of being embedded in a universe redolent with meanings. He is in the grip of the real thing.

The depressed buffered self on the other hand will be able to take a step of disengagement from his feelings by saying 'it is just my body chemistry' - and take a pill. The chemistry doesn't have the meaning - it just feels that way.

How did this change in perspective come about? Well, I do think the Reformation had more than a little to do with it. That is, there was a specifically theological change of tack that led to the disenchantment of the universe. I wonder if Taylor shares this thought...

A attempt at a renewed outline... (notice Eliot has disappered!)

Martyrdom is an dramatisation of the Christian self-understanding. As such it highlights the dissonance between the Christian and non-Christian views of human freedom, fulfillment and meaning. In fact, Salman Rushdie articulates a very powerful stream of anti-religious sentiment within secular western culture which specifically targets that religious self-understanding that would result in a person's death like this. He accuses martyrs of a dishonest way of approaching death, of an inauthentic selfhood, of a hatred of pleasure and a denial of the goodness of the world, of self-interest and tribalism, of promoting social disorder and stifling human aspirations.

How might Christians respond to this vigorous critique and yet maintain their identity and witness as Christians? Well, a number of possible and tempting reconciliations are on offer. Martha Nussbaum suggests that Christians are too narrow and inflexible in their approach, and ought to broaden their moral sources. Richard Rorty appeals to us to hold our metaphysical commitments at arms length, especially in public. Roger Scruton appeals to duty to the national identity. Following these is more an accusation than a temptation: that martyrdom really just reveals how egotistical Christianity is and Christians are.
However none of these suggestions proves adequate to both....

Charles Taylor - A Secular Age

Well Charles Taylor's mighty effort A Secular Age is here. I am daunted by the prospect: I am still chewing over things I learnt in Sources of the Self.

His opening ploy is to say that the word 'secular' has been used in three senses. 'Secularity 1' describes the secularisation of public spaces - it is the official separation of church and state for example, or the insistence that religious arguments be inadmissable in public debate.

'Secularity 2' however has come about at pretty much the same time. And that is the decline of religious belief and practice. Now, S1 needn't mean S2: in the US there is a very strong sense of S1 but if anything a stronger sense that S2 is not occuring.

But Taylor's object in this study is S3: which he says 'consists of new conditions of belief; it consists in a new shape to the experience which prompts to and is defined by belief; in a new context in which all search and questioning about the moral and spiritual must proceed.' (p. 20) Or, earlier he says 'the change I want to define and trace is on e which takes us from a society in which it was virtually impossible not to believe in God, to one in which faith, even for the staunchest believer, is one possibility among others...Belief in God is no longer axiomatic. There are alternatives.'

Secularity in this sense is a whole context of understanding, in which our moral/religious quest takes place. Taylor interestingly argues that S1 did not bring about S2, as is commonly thought: but it did bring about or had a share in bringing about S3...

Jerry Springer the Opera

This story about an evangelical Christian group who have sought to prosecute the director of the BBC on the basis of blasphemy laws in the United Kingdom got right up my nose for a couple of reasons.

One is that Christians have to stop taking offence on behalf of Jesus. Taking offence is exactly what secular liberals expect religious people to do - to respond irrationally and emotionally to the negative or irreverent depiction of religious subject matter. It is what Islamic groups do. To then seek protection from the law is entirely counter-productive, as was demonstrated in this case. Challenged to act on the blasphemy laws, the court actually said that broadcasts and theatrical performances were exempt from them. So, the result is a huge net loss for the Christian cause: whereas previously performers might have restrained themselves, they now have a legal ruling that they can say and show what they like vis a vis Christianity. Good job, Christian Voice!

But, having said that: the liberal or humanist voices that jump up to defend the likes of Jerry Springer the Opera as an important work of art or what have you are having a laugh. JStO - I viewed part of it on the BBC - is a deliberately offensive and crass piece of undergraduate drama that has been given far too much publicity. It is a shame that in our society the BBC (for example) couldn't make the free decision to respect the beliefs of many of its licence-paying subscribers and not show it because it trampled underfoot something they hold precious. Why does it have to see something like this as 'cutting edge television'?

Further, the court ruled that because there were no negative effects - no riots, no marches, no mass civil disobedience, (actually, there were some very civilised protest marches) - that blasphemy could not be upheld. These were the words of the ruling:
The play had been performed regularly in major theatres in London for a period of nearly two years without any sign of it undermining society or occasioning civil strife or unrest...
Since when was strife the yardstick for blasphemy? And in order to receive protection from the blasphemy laws, do Christians have to act like some Muslims did - that is, disgracefully - when the Danish cartoon fiasco occurred?

As I said, Jesus's name will be honoured without the help of blasphemy laws: and it is to the loss of those involved in the Jerry Springer production if they don't see it yet. It is a matter for weeping, not protesting.

Jeffrey Stout and Piety II

Piety - an intriguing notion. It was precisely for lack of piety - meaning that mix of civil and religious duty - that the early martyrs were killed.

I think the accusation is still very much in play: Christians, if/when they are faithful witnesses, stand accused of impiety against the liberal secular order.

Stout describes modern piety thus:

Piety ... is not to be understood primarily as a felling, expressed in acts of devotion, but rather as a virtue, a morally excellent aspect of character. It consists in just or appropriate response to the sources of one's existence and progress through life. Family, political community, the natural wolrd, and God are all said to be sources on which we depend, sources to be acknowledged appropriately. Emersonians and Augustinians agree that piety, in this sense, is a crucial virtue, and they share an interest in clarifying the proper relationship between civic and religious piety. But they disagree over how the sourecs should be conceived and what constitutes appropriate acknowledgment of our dependence on them. ( Democracy and Tradition, p. 20)

Benedict XVI proves my point...

The pope's latest encyclical, whose title is 'In hope we are saved', proves my point about the renewed interest in martyrdom:

Certainly, in our many different sufferings and trials we always need the lesser and greater hopes too—a kind visit, the healing of internal and external wounds, a favourable resolution of a crisis, and so on. In our lesser trials these kinds of hope may even be sufficient. But in truly great trials, where I must make a definitive decision to place the truth before my own welfare, career and possessions, I need the certitude of that true, great hope of which we have spoken here. For this too we need witnesses—martyrs—who have given themselves totally, so as to show us the way—day after day. We need them if we are to prefer goodness to comfort, even in the little choices we face each day—knowing that this is how we live life to the full. Let us say it once again: the capacity to suffer for the sake of the truth is the measure of humanity. Yet this capacity to suffer depends on the type and extent of the hope that we bear within us and build upon. The saints were able to make the great journey of human existence in the way that Christ had done before them, because they were brimming with great hope

Why the renewed interest in martyrdom?

I think it is quite fair to say that, whereas martyrdom was scarcely mentioned by theologians of a generation ago, today martyrdom is mentioned by almost everybody. Why? What has changed?

Here are my speculations:

• as we have moved into a post-Christendom situation, theologians are more aware of a creeping hostility to their discipline, and to the church in the wider culture. Instead of feeling part of a largely Christianised culture, we now find ourselves seeking an identity in contradistinction to the culture. These are themes in the theologies of Milbank and Hauerwas among others, too.
• a move away from abstraction towards enfleshed particularity; the attraction of the exemplar, in moral terms rather than the theory.
• a growing awareness of the plight of Christians world-wide, and the way in which real martyrs have made a difference in terrible situations in recent times. Luwum and Romero, for example.
• has liberation theology made a difference here?
• the spectacle and fear of religious violence

Hmmm....

Hart on Providence

Does God do micro-management? And more importantly: how do we account for human freedom as a real and not imaginary gift of God if we have a view of God's providence that is too unvariegated? What is more: how can we account for God's providence without accusing him of commiting evil?

Hart says:

Certainly all Christians must affirm God's transcendent governance of everything, even fallen history and fallen nature, and must believe that by that governance he will defeat evil and bring the final good of all things out of the darkness of 'this age'. It makes a considerable difference, however - nothing less than our unerstand of the nature of God is at stake - whether one says that God has eternally willed the history of sin and death, and all that comes to pass therein,as the proper or necessary means of achieving his ends, or whether one says instead that god has willed his good in creatures from eternity and will bring it to pass, despite their rebellion, by so ordering all thigs toward his goodness tha even evil (which he does not cause) becomes an occasion of the operations of grace. And it is only the latter view than can accurately be called a doctrine of 'providence' in the properly theological sense: the former is mere determinism. (p. 82)

This makes a good deal of sense to me: it has to be possible that God does not will the death of a sinner, but that the sinner does indeed die. (2 Peter 3:9). And, if we are not careful in our attribution of all causation to the will of God, God merely becomes the devil in disguise. Aquinas posited a primary level of causation (ie God's) which transcends the secondary causes which are merely finite. So, my decision to get a cup of coffee in the morning is truly mine, though it arises out of appetites and conditions that aren't mine - my body, the world's economy that enables cheapish coffee to be delivered to me, the fashion to drink coffee etc. God does decide for me, at that level: but his providential will surrounds and transcends my will at every side. This means that I don't have to fall for those 'open God' theologies, which are beneath contempt, frankly.

Hart does not however deal with a couple of passages which seem to indicate a more micro-managing approach: Jesus talking about the sparrows and the lilies, for example....

A word on scripture in theology

A word as to hermeneutical method deployed is needed at this point [ie in my thesis!]. The early martyr-acts and the patristic discussions of martyrdom are richly drenched in scriptural references and allusions. This was possible and meaningful because (despite the variety of methods of interpretation used) the scriptures were held to be a unity cohering in Christ, the one whose death provided the template for Christian martyrdom. The texts of scripture had particular import for these individuals facing a terrible death, and as it is reported, gave them particular inspiration and solace.[1] Scripture ought to have particular prominence and authority in any theological account of martyrdom, therefore. More than this: a reading of the canonical scriptures which highlights their salvation-historical – and so Christological – shape is the appropriate complement to the subject at hand, because theological reflection on martyrdom has always had this perspective in one way or another. We attempt to read scripture, therefore, with an eye to its unfolding disclosure of a history of redemption as well as to the theological concepts that it generates.[2] The readings of scripture we attempt here are necessarily selective, but in each case the selections of texts are neither arbitrary nor irrelevant. The salvation-historical nature of the material necessarily plunges us into the business of narrative analysis; but it also the case that the scriptures provide the frame, or chart the trajectory for a theological discussion they themselves prompt but do not provide.

[1] Brad S. Gregory says the same about the martyrs of the Reformation era. Gregory, Salvation at Stake : Christian Martyrdom in Early Modern Europe, p. ??
[2] We hope to take heed of Oliver O’Donovan’s stern warning not to ‘dip into Israel’s experience at one point … and to take out a single disconnected image or theme from it’ which would be ‘to treat the history of God’s reign like a commonplace book or a dictionary of quotations.’ Oliver O'Donovan, The Desire of the Nations - Rediscovering the Roots of Political Theology (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), p. 27.

Post-It label Theology...

In his impressive book Bound to Sin, Alistair McFadyen makes an appeal against ‘Post-It™ label theology’, which, he explains, is when God is ‘stuck on’ to secular analyses and descriptions of the world. For it to carry explanatory force, theology must add something significant to our level of explanation and understanding of the world. As McFadyen puts it with regard to his study of sin:

If God is the most basic reality and explanation of the world, then it must be the case that the world cannot adequately be explained, understood, lived in, without reference to God in our fundamental means both of discernment and action.

Which means that theology ought to be more attentive to its own way speaking and to its own concepts than to concepts drawn from elsewhere.

(Alistair I. McFadyen, Bound to Sin: Abuse, Holocaust, and the Christian Doctrine of Sin, Cambridge Studies in Christian Doctrine; 6 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000) p.12. )

The Doors of the Sea - Where was God in the Tsunami?

David Bentley Hart's small book The Doors of the Sea has finally reached me. I am surprised how vehemently it is an attack on certain Reformed understandings of the sovereignty of God - but then again, I do think that there is something weird, even perverse, about the way God is celebrated as a pure absolute will by some Reformed writers (though this is probably caricature, Hart provides some gob-smackingly callous examples of Reformed responses to the tsunami).

I thought this point was well made (among others):

...disturbing as it may be, it is clearly the case that there is a kind of 'provisional' cosmic dualism within the New Testament: not an ultimate dualism of course, between two equal princinples; but certainly a conflict between a sphere of created autonomy that strives against God on the one hand and the saving of God in time on the other...To say that God elects to fashion rational creatures in his image, and so grants them the freedom to bind themselves and the greater physical order to another master - to say that he who sealed up the doors of the sea might permit them to be opened again by another, more reckless hand - is not to say that God's ultimate design for his creatures can be thwarted. It is to acknowledge, however, that his will can be resisted by a real and (by his grace) autonomous force of defiance, or can be hidden from us by the history of cosmic corruption, and that final realization of the good he intends in all things has the form (not simply as a dramatic fiction, for our edification or his glory, nor simplay as a paedagogical device on his part, but in truth) of a divine victory. (p. 61-62)

I think provisional dualism is right: it allows for this 'autonomous' force of defiance, with which we have to deal, and whom we are to take seriously, but also ensures that God isn't somehow threatened ultimately by the struggle.

Of the use of literature in theological work

In my doctoral work I have made a use of TS Eliot's play Murder in the Cathedral as a framing device and a stimulus to theological and scriptural reflection.

This strategy could be objected to on the grounds that:

• Eliot was at best an amateur theologian (he himself used this term)- and, in fact, had some heterodox tendencies (for example, the influence of Eastern non-Christian mysticism is evident even in his later work).
• His purpose was aesthetic rather than theological - this isn't serious theology
• in fact, there is a long Christian tradition of suspicion of drama

To which I reply:

• the tradition of Christian theological reflection includes quite a number of literary/aesthetic works, and should not exclude them. In fact, exclusion of them would greatly impoverish the tradition of Christian thought.
• a number of significant contemporary philosophers are using literary narratives and plays in their work. Martha Nussbaum and Richard Rorty are but two examples. Narratives necessarily embedd discussion of human life in relationships with others and in time - ie, they enable a complex discussion of the human situation.
• what is more, serious theologians - Hauerwas for example, and Rowan Williams and Paul Fiddes and David Ford - are using literary works in precisely this way. They do so not merely in a 'literature and theology' mode, but to enrich their discussion of theological concepts - ie in 'serious' theology.
• imaginative works have always had an influence on Christian theological thought and it is just a kind of academic snobbery to exclude them, or to question their place in the debate.
• in fact, narratives of imaginative power have a capacity to do what abstract theological work cannot. They are perhaps more suited to the business at hand - because they deal with humans in the midst of life, under the eye of providence etc.
• And, the obvious point: the Bible is more 'literary' than it is 'philosophical'!