The Boston Molasses Disaster

At a quiz tonight, to my great surprise, I got a question on the Boston Molasses Disaster correct. It deserves to be better known, as at least 21 people met a sticky and surprising end.

At 529 Commercial Street, a huge molasses tank 50 ft (15 m) tall, 90 ft (27 m) in diameter and containing as much as 2,300,000 US gal (8,700,000 L) collapsed. Witnesses stated that as it collapsed there was a loud rumbling sound like a machine gun as the rivets shot out of the tank, and that the ground shook as if a train were passing by.

The collapse unleashed an immense wave of molasses between 8 and 15 ft (2.5 to 4.5 m) high, moving at 35 mph (56 km/h) and exerting a pressure of 2 ton/ft² (200 kPa). The molasses wave was of sufficient force to break the girders of the adjacent Boston Elevated Railway's Atlantic Avenue structure and lift a train off the tracks. Nearby, buildings were swept off their foundations and crushed. Several blocks were flooded to a depth of 2 to 3 feet.

Omnipresence?

From time to time, I find it helpful to question things which are often assumed in Christianity. I don't mean things that have been discussed and agreed on, like the Nicene Creed or the Chalcedonian definition or anything, I mean things we always take for granted because we're always taught them, like "Jesus wept" being the shortest verse in the Bible (it isn't; it's three words in Greek; 1 Thess 5:16, 17 are each only two words in Greek, and 1 Thes 5:17 is two words in most English translations as well, though 1 Thes 5:16 is shorter in terms of letters). Sometimes I change my mind partly as a result of thinking it through, like I did with Soul sleep, (mind change).

Anyway - omnipresence. Here's what I think at the moment:

The Bible doesn't teach that God is omnipresent. It teaches he is with believers whereever they are. It teaches he can see everywhere, he can act everywhere and anywhere, but it doesn't teach that he actually is everywhere.

In fact, the idea of God being spatially located in that way doesn't actually make a lot of sense to me. I think it's a leftover from Greek philosophy, and has a nasty tendency to head towards panentheism. Anyone want to argue / agree?

Random Thoughts

I was in a supermarket the other day, and was disturbed by just how much more space is given to fizzy drinks than to fruit juice. I mean - who drinks more fizzy than fruit juice anyway? I think I might have done for about a year when I was a teenager.

Today I've sung two great songs about the cross - And Can it Be and Oh to see the dawn. And what struck me was just how little we often pay attention to the words of great hymns we're used to, especially when they've got lively tunes. I remember years ago reading through a hymnbook with a new Christian - teaching them hymns and so on. We got to "And Can it Be", and my reaction was just to sing it quickly and skate over it. But my friend broke down in tears, because she actually paid attention to the words...

And can it be, that I should gain
An interest in the Saviour's blood? Died he for me, who caused his pain, For me who him to death pursued? Amazing love, how can it be, that Thou, my God, shouldst die for me?

Now it is that "Oh to see the dawn" has a better tune for the words, or is it just that we're less familiar with it? Because I'm always moved when I sing it, and I just welly And Can it Be out without getting moved so much...

Corporate Incorporation and Baptism

These are my thoughts semi-spinning off a seminar held at Wycliffe with the (very intelligent and well-read) Dr Benno van den Torren. It's quite possible I've mangled the arguments beyond recognition – if I've done so it's my fault.

Who makes decisions?

It's very interesting that the credobaptist movement only really got going during the Enlightenment, because it assumes some ideas which don't seem to have existed in the same way before then.

One of them is the notion of individual autonomy. In the modern world, we tend to think that the fundamental decision-making unit of society is the individual person, which incidentally is part of the reason for family breakdown and so on. Interestingly, the Bible teaches individual responsibility a lot, but doesn't teach individual autonomy, though we often read it back in from our culture.

Even in our culture, if we look at what actually happens with decision-making, not all individuals are autonomous. Some married couples or best friends always make decisions as a couple. Some types of disability mean that people depend on others for their decisions. The same could be said of some elderly people, who no longer make decisions for themselves, and some children, who do not yet make decisions for themselves.

In other cultures, it's even stronger. Some tribal cultures, the tribal chief will decide everything that matters. In some cultures, the corporation makes many important decisions. Where there is slavery, often the slaves do not get to make decisions for themselves, which is part of the reason we in the West hate the idea so much, because we value our own autonomy so highly. We even tend to describe relationships where one person does not have as much decision-making ability as we would like as “abusive”, but abusive relationships exist too.

Children are a particularly interesting example. The process of growing up, with all the stresses and strains of that, can usually be described in the (post-)modern West as going from the child having zero autonomy – they don't decide what to wear or where to go or anything to full autonomy.

So even in the West, the situation is a lot more complex than simply being individuals making their own decisions. There are still some corporate decision-making units, and there are lots of shades of grey.

The New Testament

The same was true in the Roman world in which the events in the New Testament take place. Slavery was very much legal, though with a large number of freedmen – ex-slaves. Wives and children were legally property of the husband / father, to the point where Paul could say that the difference between a slave and a son is that the son will one day inherit.

Some slaves do seem to have made their own decisions – Onesimus being a good example, even if he is most famous for running away, but there was wide variation in terms of both the educational level and the degree of autonomy that slaves had. Some were effectively estate managers, others were effectively treated as machines. Likewise with some wives – there are several places where Christian wives of non-Christian husbands are addressed.

What is interesting when we come to consider baptism in the New Testament world is that sometime individuals were baptised (for example the Ethiopian eunuch in Acts 8, who seems to have been a very powerful slave), and sometimes whole corporate units are baptised because the person in charge becomes a Christian.

Examples:

One who heard us was a woman named Lydia, from the city of Thyatira, a seller of purple goods, who was a worshiper of God. The Lord opened her heart to pay attention to what was said by Paul. And after she was baptized, and her household as well, she urged us, saying, "If you have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come to my house and stay." And she prevailed upon us.
Acts 16:14-15, ESV

There's no evidence of individual faith there from anyone in the household except Lydia. The household of a trader of purple goods would probably have included quite a few slaves and so on. Were there children? I don't think it matters. There's baptism without any record of individual profession of faith here.

And the jailer called for lights and rushed in, and trembling with fear he fell down before Paul and Silas. Then he brought them out and said, "Sirs, what must I do to be saved?" And they said, "Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your household." And they spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all who were in his house. And he took them the same hour of the night and washed their wounds; and he was baptized at once, he and all his family. Then he brought them up into his house and set food before them. And he rejoiced along with his entire household that he had believed in God.
Acts 16:29-34, ESV

Here, the whole household gets to hear, but only the jailer is recorded as believing, and the whole household gets baptised.

In that culture, it would have been very unusual for one of his slaves to refuse to go along with the master's beliefs. Which is why there's quite a bit in the New Testament about the difficult situation where a slave does become a Christian without the master doing so.

Other people who get baptised with their entire households: Crispus in Acts 18:8, Stephanas in 1 Corinthians 1:16. It's interesting that a decent fraction of all the baptisms we have recorded in the New Testament are baptising whole households. And whole households, not just everyone in the household except scullery maid number 3, who doesn't actually seem to have an individual faith.

The point is that baptism in the New Testament isn't just baptising people who believe; it also seems to be baptising anyone who is dependent on the believer for decision-making. They don't wait until the slaves profess individual faith or until they are free and so can believe without compulsion. If there were children in those households, would they have been baptised, or would they have waited? Waited for what? If slaves are being baptised, then children would be too.

The application to infant baptism today is obvious.

Respect to the Catholics

You've sometimes got to hand it to the Roman Catholics...

I'm doing a theology degree at a secular university which has some Catholic (and some Protestant) bits attached. Today I went to a class which was meant to be part of an 8 class series covering modern theology, given by a Catholic visiting fellow at the university. And what was he using as his only text for the 8 week course?

The Roman Catholic Catechism.

By comparison, a parallel class was spending the first week thinking about Bultmann (who I'd characterise as an atheist existentialist desperately trying to be a Christian without giving up the atheism or the existentialism).

Now I'm not sure I'd have the guts even to consider basing an 8 week theology course in a secular university on the 39 Articles, or the UCCF DB, or the Westminster Confession, or the C of E catechism, unless it was specifically specified as the subject for the course.

Whether it's wise to do so or not is a completely different question. But respect to the Catholics for having the guts to try...

Pannenberg, Brunner, Barth - Revelation

For the last two days, I've been (meant to be) reading some modern (some even German-speaking) theologians. All of them seem to give at best a mixed bag, in terms of both comprehensibility and truthfulness, but here are some of the highlights...

Thus, we saw that it is only the end of all events which could bring in the final self-manifestation of Jahweh, the perfection of his revelation.... the witness of the New Testament is that in the fate of Jesus Christ the end is not only seen ahead of time, but is experienced by means of a foretaste. For, in him, the resurrection of the dead has already taken place, though to all other men this is still something yet to be experienced.

...

Now the history of the world is only visible when one stands at its end... With the resurrection of Jesus, the end of history has already occurred, although it does not strike us in this way. It is through the resurrection that God has substantiated his deity in an ultimate way and is now manifest as the God of all men. It is only the eschatological character of the Christ event that establishes that there will be no further self-manifestation of God beyond this event. Thus, the end of the world will be on a cosmic scale what has already happened in Jesus.

Wolfhart Pannenberg, Dogmatic Theses of the Concept of Revelation

As a rule the modern man does not understand the claim of Christianity to be a religion of revelation, and he therefore rejects it. The most characteristic element of the present age, and that which distinguishes it from earlier periods in history, is the almost complete disappearance of the sense of transcendence and the consciousness of revelation.

Emil Brunner, Revelation and Reason

All the Church need do is just this: After any exegesis propounded in it, even the very best, it has to realise afresh the distinction between text and commentary and to let the text speak again without let or hindrance, so that it will experience the lordship of this free power...

...

Thus God does reveal himself in statements, through the medium of speech, and indeed of human speech. His word is always this or that word spoken by the prophets and apostles and proclaimed in the Church. The personal character of God's Word is not, therefore, to be played off against its verbal or spiritual character.

Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics

Harry Potter - alternative ending

Hat tip to Caleb for this one.

Here is a well-written and quite cool, (if a little theologically dubious), alternative ending to Harry Potter 7, from back when the last word was officially "scar".

The Sceptic's Dream

I was listening to Daniel 2 yesterday, and was reminded of how much I like it, particularly what we see of the character of Nebuchadnezzar.

He's the King of Babylon - the most powerful kingdom in the known world. And more than that, he's not taken in by all the superstition and "smart guys" in the royal court, though he's not quite modern either. So when he has a dream, he thinks it has a meaning and is worried about it. But he knows that if the court astrologers and so on aren't just faking it, they'll be able to tell him what the dream was as well as the meaning.

Then the king answered, "I am certain that you are trying to gain time, because you realize that this is what I have firmly decided: If you do not tell me the dream, there is just one penalty for you. You have conspired to tell me misleading and wicked things, hoping the situation will change. So then, tell me the dream, and I will know that you can interpret it for me."

The astrologers answered the king, "There is not a man on earth who can do what the king asks! No king, however great and mighty, has ever asked such a thing of any magician or enchanter or astrologer. What the king asks is too difficult. No one can reveal it to the king except the gods, and they do not live among men."

This made the king so angry and furious that he ordered the execution of all the wise men of Babylon.

Daniel 2:8-12, NIV

Now I'm not saying I'd want to work for Nebuchadnezzar - his labour relations policy had a lot to be desired and he had some issues with pride, but I've got a lot of sympathy with him here. The astrologers and wise guys claimed to have access to some form of knowledge from beyond the universe. Neb calls their bluff, and wins.

It's interesting also that the astrologers, despite all their claims (and the Babylonians arguably invented Western astrology and astronomy), are still functional atheists when it comes to checkable claims. They genuinely don't think that gods reveal things to people, or that gods live among men, which makes one wonder precisely how they claimed their astrology and so on worked. Ask Russell Grant, or whoever the astrologers of today are, what the biggest news story of 2008 will be, and if they get it wrong, they're obviously bogus. They won't know any better than anyone else.

Anyway, Daniel shows up and says this:

Daniel replied, "No wise man, enchanter, magician or diviner can explain to the king the mystery he has asked about, but there is a God in heaven who reveals mysteries. He has shown King Nebuchadnezzar what will happen in days to come. Your dream and the visions that passed through your mind as you lay on your bed are these...

Daniel 2:27-28, NIV

And the story ends like this:

The king said to Daniel, "Surely your God is the God of gods and the Lord of kings and a revealer of mysteries, for you were able to reveal this mystery."

Daniel 2:47, NIV

One of the big concerns of the prophets is attacking idolatry. Daniel does it in an unusual way - he presents a series of stories which serve as contests between God and the various gods worshipped in Babylon, the most powerful nation in the known world. Here he shows that the gods the astrologers and wise guys claimed to follow are precisely zero use when it comes to testable stuff, but that God can reveal mysteries.

And that seems to chime in with a lot of sceptics' views. The Babylonian religion looks like it is actually completely ineffective. Yes, there are clever guys involved, giving their own wisdom. But there is no access to transcendent truth or revelation in a way that goes beyond what normal people have. And the astrologers and so on know it when it comes to the crunch. There's a chance they're even just going along with it to keep themselves in business.

But there is a real God, who does have the power to reveal mysteries, and to act, and to save his people.

Webb - Healing

Hezekiah recovered as the Lord said he would. It is rather surprising, however, after the astonishing nature of the sign, to be told that recovery itself was accomplished by something as mundane as the preparation and application of a poultice! But if we are surprised, it is because of a defect in our own theology rather than anything incongruous in the text. For there is no disjunction in Scripture between miraculous and natural healing, as though God were involved in one and not the other. He is as much Lord of the soothing poultice as he is of the moving shadow, and perhaps our eyes would be more open and our hearts more thankful if only we could grasp this simple and sane biblical truth more firmly.

Barry Webb, The Message of Isaiah (comments on Isaiah 38

Ryle - trusting in anything except Christ

In himself [the regenerate person] sees nothing but unworthiness, but in Christ he sees ground for the fullest confidence, and trusting in Him, he believes that his sins are all forgiven, and his iniquities put away. He believes that for the sake of Christ's finished work and death upon the cross he is reckoned righteous in God's sight, and may look forward to death and judgment without alarm. He may have his fears and doubts. He may sometimes tell you he feels as if he had no faith at all. But ask him whether he is willing to trust in anything instead of Christ, and see what he will say. Ask him whether he will rest his hopes of eternal life on his own goodness, his own amendments, his prayers, his minister, his doings in church and out of church, either in whole or in part, and see what he will reply. Ask him whether he will give up Christ, and place his confidence in any other way of salvation. Depend upon it, he would say, that though he does feel weak and bad, he would not give up Christ for all the world...

J.C. Ryle, Knots Untied