2008/04/27

Formative moments (6): College Chapel

[I haven't blogged since I got back from Alaska. Life has been too busy: so I haven't really caught up with the Indian Taxi Fund (but I should; maybe you should too); nor have I reconnected with Nick, though he seems to be having a ball in Brisbane - which makes sense, its a great place. There are several other blogs I should shout out for, too: just see the list below on the right, though.]


After a few rather negative formative moments, here's a more positive one. Students in Oxford have to belong to one of its constituent colleges: these are self-regulating communities which at first sight seem something like a dorm or hall of residence elsewhere. They do function as genuine communities, though, and for historical reasons, some of that corporate existence is focussed upon the college chapel, which, also for historical reasons, is almost invariably part of the Anglican (Episcopalian) expression of Christianity.


I joined the college chapel choir, and learned much about a liturgical, contemplative approach to faith. I learned that the right-hand candle on the altar represents the gospel, and the gospel never stands alone, and so is lit second and extinguished first (unfortunately I never found out what the left-hand - north - candle represents). On the day that I was stand-in sacristan, I found out the full extent of the Doctrine of the Real Presence: my role having to include rinsing the chaplain's figures after the communion, first with unconsecrated wine, and then with water (all of which he then consumed) - I had perhaps over-filled the chalice in the first place, and since the chaplain was obliged to consume all the wine he had consecrated, I doubt that his blood-alcohol level was within legal limits on the drive home. I failed to grasp the importance of a conundrum set me by a stand-in chaplain over wine at a black-tie dinner: one one occasion, he had been due to preside at communion, but was unable to open the college silver safe, and so had to use a common plate and cup from the kitchen. After the service, should he have destroyed the vessels, or returned them to the kitchen? I even read the daily office once, when the chaplain was absent, for a congregation of two.

You might gather that all this and more served to open wide the eyes of an 18-year-old schooled in fairly (but not extreme) evangelical norms. The chaplain was a wise pastor who respected the broad range of background of those participating in the life of the chapel, and, within the set liturgical framework, worked to incorporate people a best he could. One of the Fellows of the college was an Orthodox Bishop, whose sermons were always sublimely different from anything else I encountered - but very spiritual.

Above all, I think, I learned first-hand that there were people out there who would describe their faith in a profoundly different way from me, and yet evidently and totally followed Christ, trusting in his death and resurrection.

Of course it wasn't all bathed in a rosy glow. Some of the chapel preachers seemed to want to spout academic nonsense, suffused with lots of doubt and scepticism. I used to go to chapel wondering whether this week would be the time that I decided I had to walk out part-way through because the sermon was just too much beyond the pale (and how awkward that would be, given the narrow pews and small chapel). I never did walk out, but I was struck recently by the irony of the fact that about the closest I've ever actually come to doing so wasn't in that chapel, but in a certain evangelical-cum-fundamentalist church in North America.

2008/04/16

Formative moments (5): there was no flood covering the whole of planet earth

Since I'm on a roll...

A couple of years ago, I had to preach on Genesis 6 and 7. So, for the first time in years, I had to take the Flood seriously. I didn't feel that I could fudge the issue, so after a good bit of reading, I concluded, and said from the pulpit, that there was no way that a flood covered the whole of the planet we now call earth.

In a sense, that seems a bigger deal than rejecting young-earth creationism: Genesis 1-3 has many possible readings. Genesis 7 tells us (TNIV):
Every living thing that moved on the earth perished — birds, livestock, wild animals, all the creatures that swarm over the earth, and the entire human race. Everything on dry land that had the breath of life in its nostrils died.
But, it seems to me that even assuming that some major cataclysm affected Noah and his family, it did not affect, say, the kangaroo. Nor even, perhaps, the Aboriginal Australians. That seems evident from the geological record. But to say so is, somehow, Evangelical heresy, since it says that the "plain meaning" of the biblical text is "wrong".

It's tempting to make a special case for the stuff in Genesis which precedes Abraham; to give it the status of myth, whose purpose is to tell us about God and his dealings with man, not to give us a history of the near-East (nor less, a history of mankind). But that leaves an awful lot of questions, since the author or ancient editor of the book has linked everything together with genealogies.

Now, I guess I had all that in the back of my mind for years. But coming out and admitting very publicly, that I don't think we can take that part of the bible (at least!!) at "face value", is most definitely a "red pill" moment.

"Plain meaning", "face value", and "wrong" are in quotes, because I realise that there's a huge amount of scholarship in the background here which I'm simply skating over. But that's what Evangelicals tend to do :-). As for me, now, I'd prefer to talk in terms of "a different way to read the text" and so on, but a bit of me is an unreconstructed modern thinker who has in the back of his mind "what you mean to say is, you don't believe it".

This is another rabbit-hole whose depth I don't really know. But somehow, I feel happier with the falling sensation, than the previous feeling of standing on something which I knew couldn't bear the weight.

2008/04/15

Formative moments (4): Creationism is evil

This is a more recent formative moment. I have reached the conclusion that "creationism" is evil, and must be refuted. I choose my words carefully here.

Growing up, I suppose I held all sorts of perspectives on this issue. I was influenced, for example, by the now-discredited tale of dinasour and human footprints in a single fossil at the River Paluxy. But when I became a man, I put childish thoughts behind me.

I assert that God made the world. And that so far the best explanation we have of his mechanism for achieving that in the physical world is the laws of physics, which presently lead us to postulate a big bang some billions of years ago. Moreover, our best available explanation of the beauty and diversity we see in the biosphere, comes from the collection of processes commonly described as evolution, broadly as first proposed by Darwin.

I am so convinced that these are the best available models that I am not interested in debating that. And insofar as they have shortcomings, I am content to leave their refinement to the processes of peer-reviewed scientific literature.

Now, there are many things about which believing people disagree. Can those who want to assert some kind of young-earth six-day creationism not be left to their own devices? Well, I suppose your private perspectives are your own business.

But there are far far too many who want to promote this creationist clap-trap. They must be opposed. Why?

1. "Creationism" makes God out to be a liar, because it means twisting the available evidence in the beautiful, diverse world he created. Nowhere is that more evident than in creationist accounts of cosmology.

2. "Creationism" forces people to choose between following rigorous science, or following God. That is a vile, evil, twisted calumny; a false dichotomy of the worst kind.

3. Because of (1) and (2), "creationism" does great harm to the gospel. If this perspective promoted love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, and the rest; if it was instrumental in bringing people to trust in Christ, to understand that God raised him from the dead, and to follow his teaching, then it would have merit. But I've never heard of it doing any of these things: it appears to turn people away from the truth about God; it appears to confirm them in their prejudices about believers as naive fools [the cross is foolishness to unbelievers: that's a different matter entirely]; it appears, not to promote the fruit of the spirit, but "dissensions, factions and envy".

Why have I labelled this a "formative moment"? Well, I suppose that for years and years I have rejected the creationist line, but have been content to live and let live. But when asked to put an announcement about an "Answers in Genesis" meeting into our church bulletin (which I edit) I suddenly realised quite how bad that would be. I refused to do it. That was my militant moment.


That's not very post-modern of me, is it? I'm not so sure about that. I don't have to hold to a single privileged metanarrative to reject creationism as simply inconsistent with the available data. Indeed, the idea of a God who acts through the mechanisms we call science is itself somewhat mysterious. In fact, such a mystery is best approached, perhaps, through story and myth: just what Genesis gives us.


[Aside: I make no apology for making no links to the stuff I want to denounce. It doesn't need more links. It's a shame the web doesn't allow for "anti-links". I'd make lots of those. I am aware of the book and site "Thank God for Evolution" - it's in the blogroll to the right here. That's on my Amazon wishlist right now.]

Do I sound angry? Perhaps I am. We have been given a beautiful world to explore and to learn about: the believing scientist sees the marvellous hand of the creator in every part of it. I don't want people to fall for unscientific drivel. I want more people to appreciate this wonderful creation in all its mechanisms, their beauty, subtlety and diversity.

2008/04/14

Not my people

Some have been following my travelogue of a road trip from Iowa to Alaska, delivering my buddy to his new home. We finished
the trip quickly, and so ate with some of the Camp staff on Saturday, and visited the local Glacierview Bible Church on Sunday. Oh dear.

My overwhelming sense, there (at the church in particular, maybe at the Bible Camp too; not sure) was that "these are not my people". That's a new, and slightly disarming experience for me.

There's a sense in which one recognises any Christians as brothers and sisters, fellow travellers. But as an Evangelical, I guess I have felt a particular affinity with those who would describe themselves similarly, use phrases like "bible-believing" and soforth. I've even tended to give those of a fundemantalist persuasion the benefit of the doubt, and see them as over-enthusiastic members of the tribe.

There were always Christians who seemed somewhat beyond the pale - the Catholics, typically. But right now, I fear that I have at least as much in common with the Catholics as with the the strident Evangelicals (I don't have a word for these people; I don't think I'd describe them as fundemantalists). These are not my people.

It wasn't just the 4x4 in the carpark, festooned with bumper stickers along the lines of "Vote Democrat: it beats working for a lving", and "Warning: the driver of this vehicle carries only $20 ... worth of amunition", and a couple about lenient judges, whose texts I sadly forget.

It wasn't just the catchy song from the kids time "Hey, hey we're not monkeys", which carried the immortal line "Darwin's bloney" [creation and evolution will the the subject of a forthcoming blog], though that one sent me into a deep contemplation which lasted for the whole rest of the service: I took no further part in what happened [more on that later, too].

It wasn't just one of the leading members (or friends; not sure which) sounding off about the iniquity of giving benefits to poor Mexican immigrants.

Somehow it's in the air. I've moved somewhere else. These aren't my people anymore. Part of me feels really unsettled by that. Part of me feels like I've rejoined the rest of the human race :-).

2008/04/06

Formative Moments (3): "Near Christianity"

Quite a few years ago now, I read a little book called "Near Christianity". It's not a remarkable book, but nicely written, and setting out to challenge some myths, some stuff that's more-or-less received evangelical orthodoxy, but not well-supported by scripture. I forget exactly which topics were covered, though I know there was something on misquotes of "all things work together for good", and also something on "Quiet Times". It seems pretty universally enjoined in evangelical circles that one should (indeed, must) have a daily quiet time, even though there is scant biblical evidence to suggest that this is a necessary part of being a Christian.

I'd reached that conclusion for myself (on the quiet times topic, and others), but I guess the key thing about reading it in a book was that it gave me "permission" to think like that; permission to challenge received wisdom, as it were. That was an early part of taking the "red pill": realising for the first time that received Evangelical wisdom wasn't necessarily the last word, that it was ok to question these things, even the things considered so basic that they were in the first Sunday School lessons; ok to reach other conclusions. What's more, you reach, perhaps the realisation that we're not all just going to agree.

I'm pretty sure I still don't know how deep the rabbit-hole goes.

2008/04/05

Long and miscellaneous

I haven't written much this week: too busy. So here is a rather more ad hominem blog than I am usually accustomed to. In several parts.


  1. I went to hear Jonathan Sacks (chief Rabbi in the UK and Commonwealth) on Thursday, talking about his book, The Home We Build Together. Ah the Oxford literary festival is a fine thing, even if this was my first visit. What a man! Urbane and funny, but very human, and incredibly optimistic. I will definitely buy the book - though I didn't queue to get a signed copy. He was talking about how we are to rebuild "society", which he sees as a third pillar, neither the state nor the market. One of the UK's biggest problems is that society has become fractured, and he says that people of faith are the ones to help rebuild it. I can't summarise the argument here, but it's good.

    One point came up in the questions afterwards, though, which brought me up short. Someone asked whether it was possible to have a society of shared values when those who would participate are tending to live parallel, non-intersecting lives - and crucial among the influences which cause that is their choice of media. Immigrants/visitors from another country can, in the 21st century, connect to the media of where they have come from (be it news, comment, blogs, whatever), and know/learn almost nothing about where they have arrived. That's a real challenge for society-building. Sacks made an analogy with the late 18th/19th century, when, he said, quoting someone else I think, that newspapers were among the principal causes of the rise of the nation state. What is to be done about this? Are we bound to end up with a global society, to match our global market, and increasingly global governance? I don't know. But it is a most interesting and challenging issue.

  2. I am writing from the business class lounge at London Heathrow's Terminal Four. Having been up since 6am, I only feel a mild frisson at sitting here drinking beer before elevenses time. Why business class? Well, it was the frequent flyer points, you see: I had enough, and, well, the availability and dates pushed me into it. Think of it as reducing my carbon footprint, by using up all the points in one splurge.

    I'm off on a crazy adventure which includes driving from Iowa to Alaska. Ok, maybe "adventure" is too strong. Adventurers go to uncharted territory, not along interstate highways. But it's a big deal to me. If I can find internet access along the way, I'll blog the trip at iowatoalaska.blogspot.com.

  3. The objective of the trip is to help friends move, who are going to participate with Victory Ministries of Alaska. That raises interesting questions right now, for me. I'm committed to supporting them - for now, practically; for the next few years, financially - but gosh, the statement of faith of that outfit is altogether more, well, definitive than I'm likely to want to be right now. No actually, scrub the last bit. It's more definitive than I've ever been, I think. But I believe in the people - and that counts for a lot. There's a lot packed up in that tension. I think it may take me quite a while to unpack it.