Morality

There's a really interesting article here.

What is especially interesting is not the comments on Manhunt 2 (very violent computer game), but the comment on the attitude in society to the use of the word "moral", spinning off this quote from Tanya Byron.

My review is not about making any kind of moral pronouncements, although I do think that it is important to look at the desensitisation to violence.

I think there's something in it. Kant saw the moral as belonging to the same world as the religious, which was a different world from science and truth. And the relativisation of religion, so that we cannot say that one person is right and another wrong, also seems to be leading to the relativisation of morality, so that we cannot say that someone else's morality is wrong.

Of course, that leads to a society which cannot function, which is why we get inconsistencies like Dr Byron's comment...

How to Stop Snoring

Quick tip for dramatically reducing snoring and sleeping better:
 
Make sure that the pillows are roughly the same thickness as the length of the top of the shoulder - the distance from shoulder to neck. That way, sleeping on the side is much more comfortable than sleeping on the back, rolling in sleep is reduced dramatically, snoring doesn't happen as much and therefore the airways stay clearer and there is better sleep all round.

despising providence

I'm staying in the (English) Lake District at the moment, which is really amazing - I haven't been here for ages.
 
It's been grey and/or raining pretty much all day today, so I haven't been able to see the great view.
 
But I'm not complaining; I'm thanking God for the rain. After all, without the rain, the grass and trees wouldn't be so beautiful and green when there isn't rain. And without the rain, there wouldn't be such a lovely lake just down the hill from where I am now.
 
If it wasn't for the rain, the Lake District wouldn't be anywhere near as nice when it is sunny. So thank God for his providences rather than complaining about them...

apologies for the lack of updates

Sorry for the lack of updates recently. I'm on camp, and the venue we are using has a truly bizarre internet access setup.
 
This is an attempt to post something on my blog using the e-mail posting feature, which I hardly use at all. Except I'm having to do it from Hotmail, because my usual server isn't accessible from here. I've also therefore enabled comment moderation while I'm away. Sorry if that means your comments aren't updated as regularly as normal.

"The Secrets of the Twelve Disciples"

Just watching / watched this program on Channel 4. As with so many of these things, it's got some good and widely acknowledged information (James as leader of the Jerusalem Church, Thomas in India, conflict in the early church over Jews / Gentiles), and tries to say that a lot of it has been suppressed to make it look like a big conspiracy with the Vatican as the evildoers. Sometimes they were, and often they weren't.

There's an interesting mix of scholars and crackpot conspiracy theorists. The stories seems to fall into several main groups:

• focusing on well-acknowledged stuff (Thomas in India) which they find crackpots to deny and then claim that the deniers represent the church establishment
• focusing on well-acknowledged stuff (Peter in Rome) which they find ultra-sceptical people (described as neutral) to deny and then focus only on the most controversial aspects of it (are the bones identified as Peter's bones really his?) and focus on the potential vested interest. There was even an ossuary (bone box) from Jerusalem labelled "Simon son of Jonah" which the guy who found it claimed wasn't Peter, but the presenter claimed had to be. The classic test is the question as to if, in 2000 years people found a tomb labelled "Elizabeth daughter of George" in the wrong place, would they think it was the remains of Queen Elizabeth II?
• really dubious stuff (James in Compostella) that they get church people to defend

The whole thing seemed to strike me as very anti-Catholic. Now I'm not the greatest lover of Roman Catholicism in the world, though I know some good Catholics and the current Pope seems generally excellent, but it seemed to be decidedly nasty. Why the hatred of Catholicism? That's what I'd like to know... (but I could make some good guesses, mostly to do with embryology and authority claims)

A Good Bit of Ceremony

Last night I had the immense privilege of going to the Easter Vigil service at the local cathedral.

I really enjoyed it - it was a great service. Lots of incense and robes and powerful liturgy and a sermon that taught Scriptural truths well, and at the heart of it all the great affirmation that Christ is Risen! (He is risen indeed, Hallelujah!)

And the fact I thought it was such a good service got me thinking again about the role of ceremony and so on. Normally, I prefer a fairly light liturgy; none of the churches I usually frequent uses robes very often, and I think if we have that sort of thing every week it is easy to get distracted from Jesus and from being forced to confront the truth for oneself by the ceremony. But ceremony can work very well on occasion, particularly when done on special occasions.

It's easy for evangelicals to reject all the ceremony, but we often overargue our case and end up seeming to say that the physical world doesn't matter and all that matters is feeding brains in jars with more information about God. (I'm a conservative evangelical - I'm allowed to say things like that about conservative evangelicals). But it isn't. We're human beings, with bodies and senses and minds that are not as rational as modernism likes to think they are.

So time for an Easter quote from Richard Hooker:

The end which is aimed at in setting down the outward form of all religious actions is the edification of the church. Now men are edified when either their understanding is taught somewhat whereof in such actions it behoveth all men to consider or when their hearts are moved with any affection suitable thereunto; when their minds are in any sort stirred up unto that reverence, devotion, attention and due regard which in those cases seemeth requisite. Because therefore unto this purpose not only speech but also sundry sensible means besides have always been thought necessary and especially those means which being object to the eye, the liveliest and most apprehensive sense of all other, have in that respect seemed the fittest to make a deep and a strong impression...

Carson - Science

Nice to see I'm even further from alone in my understanding of the theology of science...

Designed by [God], the universe hums along according to regular and predictable laws; but it does so only because he constantly exercises his sovereignty over the whole. No part of the system ever operates completely independently.

Moreover at any instant he chooses, he is free to suspend or abolish scientific 'laws'; that alone will account for such a miracle as the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. Man can discover scientific 'laws'; indeed, he must, he is commissioned to do so as the steward of creation. But the scientist who has adopted this Biblical cosmology will not only recognise such laws and allow for divinely initiated exceptions, he will realise that these laws continue faithfully because of God's sustaining power. More specifically, since divine sovereignty is mediated through the Son, the Christian will hold that it is the Son who is, even now, 'sustaining all things by his powerful word' (Heb 1:3).

...

Old Testament believers were quite aware that water evaporates, forms clouds which drop their rain, which provide rivulets, streams and rivers which run to the sea; but more customarily they preferred to speak of God sending the rain. Such is the biblical cosmology.

Don Carson, Sermon on Matthew 6:19-34

Divorce Lawyers

In private, divorce lawyers not only say you shouldn't employ yourself for your divorce; they also say you shouldn't employ them either - ie just don't get divorced.

The divorce rate among divorce lawyers is incredibly low - however much they dislike their husbands or wives, lawyers know it's not worth paying people like them a fortune to make things worse.

from here

Reminds me of the magnificently tragic film The War of the Roses, which features a divorce lawyer who always advises people to get reconciled to their partner because he has seen just how awful not being reconciled can be.

C.S. Lewis - Till We Have Faces

C.S. Lewis has written a lot of books. Until recently, the only fictional books I was aware of that he had written were the Narnia series and the science fiction trilogy. Since then I've read The Pilgrim's Regress, which I didn't especially get on with. But a few weeks ago, my girlfriend recommended Till We Have Faces. And I have to say that it is magnificent. As adult fiction goes, it's the best of Lewis's I've read. As Christian fiction goes, it's among the very best ever written. As fiction generally goes, it's superb. There's better psychological insights here than in almost anything else I've read.

The story is a reworking (and improvement) on the classical myth of Cupid and Psyche, set in a barbarian land with distant influences from Ancient Greece. As in the myth, a king has three daughters, the youngest of whom is amazingly beautiful, but gets demanded by the goddess of beauty as a sacrifice to her son. Part one of the book is the retelling of the (improved) story, from the point of view of the ugly eldest sister, who is seen very unsympathetically in the original myth - this whole story being presented as a complaint against the gods. At the end of the first part, I thought it was a very good book. But part two blew me away.

Do you think we mortals will find you gods easier to bear if you're beautiful? I tell you that if that's true we'll find you a thousand times worse. For then (I know what beauty does) you'll lure and entice. You'll leave us nothing, nothing that's worth our keeping or your taking. Those we love best - whoever's most worth loving - those are the very ones you'll pick out. Oh, I can see it happening, age after age, and growing worse and worse the more you reveal your beauty; the son turning his back on the mother and the bride on her groom, stolen away by this everlasting calling, calling, calling of the gods. Taken where we can't follow. It would be far better for us if you were foul and ravening. We'd rather you drank their blood than stole their hearts. We'd rather they were ours and dead than yours and made immortal.

The Clerical Role of "Answer Man"

An interesting quote here which raises interesting questions about theological education. For what it's worth, I certainly know quite a bit more than I did when I started my theology degree, but I don't think I'm much better at coming to an opinion on a new topic than I was as a "proper" layperson. So on topics I have studied at university, I think I'm better informed than I was, but that doesn't mean I was wrong or incapable of refuting bad theology before. On topics I haven't really studied much, I don't see why my opinion now is worth more than it was two years ago.

To perpetuate the clerical role of answer man, the layman when inside the church building must act as if he has only half a brain, while outside, in the world, he is expected to be an ambassador for Christ, a lay transmitter of faith. Outside, he is to be informed and vocal; inside, he must appear ignorant and mute as a sheep. Christians have within them many questions--questions that are at once elementary and profound, questions that would ripple the water were they raised. However, because a Christian is supposed to have "answers," life's important questions are not discussed outside the church building; and, because the pastor is the educated, spiritual authority, they are not discussed inside either.
Paul G. Johnson (b.1931), Buried Alive [1968]