Christian perspectives on the end of life: CASE conference

Last year I mentioned that New College (the one in Sydney, not the one here in Edinburgh) held its annual lecture series on the topic of bioethics. Now CASE (the Centre for Apologetic Scholarship and Education) at New College is holding a day conference on medical ethics titled "Christian perspectives on the end of life". It will be held at New College, UNSW on 27th March. More information (and registration details) can be found on the CASE site.

Matters of Life and Death: hope and bioethics at 2009 New College Lectures

As many of you know, I am currently studying at New College in Edinburgh (the window at the bottom left is O'Donovan's office).

But there is another, newer, New College that I have known for longer than this lovely place. And that is New College at the University of New South Wales in Sydney. The latter is an Anglican college that has a strong history of encouraging Christians to think carefully about their faith and their world and this focus is particularly evident in the annual New College lectures. Previous lecturers have included Stanley Hauerwas, Oliver O'Donovan, Anderw Cameron and current Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd back when he was a gleam in the eye of Labor backbenchers. Although I'm not going to be able to make it personally, this year's series on bioethics and hope also looks excellent. Too often bioethics ignores eschatology.

Here is the advertising from New College:

“Our understanding of the future changes the way we think about our ethical responsibilities in the present. The lectures will outline three different conceptions of the future and their implications for bioethics. The secular perspective derived from the Enlightenment sees the future as a human construct, an artefact created by human ingenuity. In contrast, the neoplatonic future offers the hope of an escape from the material world into the timeless realm of the spirit. The biblical view of the future provides a third radical perspective. The future is not a human artefact; it is a reflection of the loving purposes of God. Yet the physical nature of our humanity is not obliterated, it is affirmed and vindicated. For Christians, future hope lies not in being released from our physical bodies, but in becoming the people we were meant to be.”

- John Wyatt

Informed by a biblical understanding of God’s purposes the New College lectures, will consider the bioethical issues that we face every day as we make decisions about creating, preserving and protecting life. Professor Wyatt is Professor of Ethics and Perinatology, the Institute for Women’s Health, University College London. He has a long-standing interest in the philosophical, ethical and religious issues raised by advances in medical technology. He is author of the widely acclaimed book Matters of Life and Death, published by InterVarsity Press.

Tuesday 8th September | Bioethics and creation
How do different conceptions of the origins of the cosmos impact on current bioethical debates? What does creation order imply about reproductive technology, parenthood, and the intrinsic value of human life?

6.15 pm The John Niland Scientia Building, UNSW, Drinks & Canapés, lecture to follow from 7.15pm, question time and supper to follow the lectures

Wednesday 9th September | Bioethics and redemption
The minimization of suffering is central to the moral vision of utilitarianism. How does the Easter story transform perceptions of suffering and how does this impact on current bioethical controversies about assisted suicide, euthanasia, ageing and degenerative diseases?

7.30pm Main Common Room, New College, UNSW, question time and supper to follow the lectures

Thursday 10th September | Bioethics and future hope
The Enlightenment project aims to create better humans by the use of technology. How should we respond? What are the implications of the Christian hope for bioethics? How should we treat our patients now in the light of the future?

7.30pm Main Common Room, New College, UNSW, question time and supper to follow the lectures

Entrance is free. Booking is essential and must be made by 4th September.

For further information, including to book, please contact New College Reception, (02) 9381 1999, newcollege@unsw.edu.au, or visit the New College Lectures Home Page.

C. S. Lewis Today conference

After a successful gathering in 2006, the second C. S. Lewis Today conference will be held in Sydney on 23rd-24th May. The conference will be "two days of talks, panel discussion, film viewing and workshops designed for anyone interested in Lewis, professional or amateur."

This event has been timed just before the release of Prince Caspian, the film from the second book in the Narnia Chronicles (the films, wisely, are following the original publication order, rather than the chronology of the narrative), and has managed to secure a 40-minute preview reel, which will be screened on the Saturday afternoon.

Speakers include: Alan Jacobs (leading US Lewis scholar), Tim Gresham (Lewis's step-grandson), Tony Morphett (well-known Australian scriptwriter), Robert Banks (author, academic and founder of MCSI), Greg Clarke and John Dickson (directors of the Centre for Public Christianity) and many more (including yours truly).

Registrations close this Friday.

Smith on global scarcity

A (poorly edited) extract from my article on global scarcity in the latest edition of CASE magazine has been published at Sydney Anglicans.

You'll need to subscribe to CASE to get the full article, or you can find many of the ideas back in this series.

Political representation

Members of parliament are our representatives. But this means they ought to make good decisions, not simply popular decisions. Although we elect them to office, they are not to merely implement our will. They represent us in that their actions count as ours, not because they are to do what we tell them. Andrew Errington has written an insightful short piece in the latest edition of CASE magazine exploring these important claims in more detail.

In the same edition, there's also an excellent article by Mike Thompson called "Should Western Christians Support the Promotion of Democracy as a Foreign Policy Objective?" and book reviews by fellow bloggers Ben Myers and Larissa Johnson. You can order the magazine online from CASE.
Eight points for the first to correctly name this structure and briefly explain its common name.

The Faithful Writer redux

Haydn over at The Giraffe Pen has written a summary and offered some reflections about the writer's conference on Saturday that I mentioned back here. His footnote about whether Christians ought ever to be deliberately 'aggressive' and 'annoying' (as was suggested during one panel time) has generated an interesting conversation.

UPDATE: I didn't get a chance to offer my own opinion on this matter as I was in a rush when I posted this last night. While I am all for being provocative and subversive, I do not think that these straightforwardly equate with being aggressive or annoying. Paul says Let your speech always be gracious, seasonsed with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone (Colossians 4.6). It is the very graciousness of our speech that is most tasty. This doesn't necessarily mean being 'polite', but we are not gospel shock-jocks, out to provoke any reaction we can. To think we are assumes that apathy is the greatest problem our hearers face. However, in my experience, apathy can itself often be a protective mechanism to avoid repeating the pain of previous ungracious speech.

The discussion has also been raging over on MPJ's blog (and here).

The Faithful Writer

On Saturday 28th July, CASE and Matthias Media are running a one day conference at UNSW called The Faithful Writer for Christians to think about how writing can be service. The main speakers will be Tony Payne and Greg Clarke, and then there will be a number of panel discussions: Writing as Ministry; Writing and the Internet (including yours truly on the panel); Christians and fiction; Writing for impact. Sounds fun? Registration is $70/$55 before 21st July or $90/$75 after it.

It just got a write up today in Southern Cross, including a scintillating interview with one of the panellists.

Dawkins night review (Part III)

Part I; Part II.
Christianity and Atheism
Dr Greg Clarke concluded the Dawkins evening with some reflections directed particularly to Christians.

There is surprisingly little discussion of atheism in the sciptures; it is simply assumed that the normal human situation is to be religious. This indeed has been the overwhelming statistical norm for humanity throughout cultures and history. Yet the Bible does often describe the experience of living in a world where it seems like there is no God. Nonetheless, the few explicit mentions are quite scathing: Psalm 14.1 (and 53.1) says the fool says in his heart 'there is no god' and Romans 1.18-32 speaks of suppressing the truth in wickedness.* Perhaps atheism might be the expression of a desire to live my own way without God's interference.
*Rom 1.23 makes it clear that this passage is about idolators rather than atheists; I assume Greg must have been applying this pattern more broadly. This may be valid, but I remain to be convinced. Does Paul have a more specific group in mind here than simply all gentiles? Interestingly, while the fool says in his heart that there is no god, the converse does not necessarily follow. Is it fair to accuse all atheists of being fools who suppress the truth because of their wickedness? As one questioner later put it, mightn't more be said at this point?

Dr Clarke ended with four suggestions as to how Christians might respond to Dawkins and co.:

1) Don't fight fire with fire. This is a very bitter book. Respond kindly, rather than in kind.
2) Acknowledge where religion can oppress and welcome the critique of life-destroying faiths. This is not alien to the scriptural witness.
3) Acknowledge that not all 'Christian' claims and behaviour are defensible.
4) Like The Da Vinci Code, seize the opportunity for discussion.

The ensuing question time followed a number of paths which Greg had opened, and overall I thought the night went quite well. I'll finish with a brief reflection on method.

I have learned a great deal from Greg, both directly and through example. In particular, I have appreciated his threefold classification of apologetics: (a) traditional 'defensive apologetics' (a tautology, I know), where attacks on Christian belief are answered; (b) kategorics, or 'reverse apologetics', where the claims of other views receive critical scrutiny; and (c) 'attractive apologetics', where the fecundity, coherence, explanatory power and beauty of Christian belief are displayed in a way that makes the Christian life appealing. Without denying the place of (a) and (b), Greg has repeatedly demonstrated the priority of (c) in his role as public apologist over the last few years. However, on this evening, I would have liked to have seen more (c), which I felt was somewhat muted in comparison to (a) and (b).

Speaking of which, in the latest edition of CASE magazine, Ben Myers has contributed an article called "An Apologetics of Imagination" (Ben has also written a longer summary). He rejects the 'imperialist' apolgetics of rhetorical violence in which one's opponent is backed into a logical, but inhumane, corner, in favour of an ethically self-reflective apologetic discourse, one where the forms of speech used are consonant with the message being advocated. Such a discourse would be not only 'rationally persuasive' but also 'imaginatively compelling'; rhetorical coercion would give way to imaginate invitation: come and see the world from over here! Managing to footnote Hart, Milbank, Küng, Barth and McGrath in a handful of lines, this article expressed with theological breadth what I think Greg has been trying to embody for years. This is more than simply being nice (though Greg is a deeply nice guy); it is speaking the truth in love.
One final time, twelve points for the best explanation of the link between image and post.

Matheson on the Problem of Evil

For those interested in the CASE course on the problem of evil I mentioned back here but who are unable to make it to the country (obviously due to a commitment to reducing/eliminating their flying kilometres, rather than any lack of interest in the course), here is the text of a lecture given a couple of weeks ago by Dr Matheson Russell as a teaser to the course. Here's a quote to whet your appetite:

We who have grown up in Christian evangelical circles have inherited a particular way of understanding and talking about God’s relationship to events in the world which we call the doctrine of ‘divine sovereignty’. By this we usually mean God’s control over events; the idea that nothing happens that is beyond God’s control. I want to suggest that this is actually a parody of two traditional Christian ideas that we need to recover.

You'll have to read the article to find out what they are...

Let the little children come to...

...someone else. Jesus preferably.

Yesterday morning, I spent two hours teaching four classes of school Scripture to six to twelve year olds.

Last night, I spent two hours with Dr Matheson Russell teaching a CASE course on the problem of evil to about twenty adults.

I know which age group I prefer teaching. Scripture is a wonderful opportunity and kids are so often delightful, but putting twenty-odd together and letting them loose on me without much of a voice (or much experience, training or skill in dealing with primary and infants kids) is a recipe for general mayhem. I'd like to improve, but I'd also like to encourage those with an existing passion (and/or training) to get involved too (or simply instead!).

As for the CASE course, it's not too late to join. We had a great time last night, and there's still three more weeks to go. Thanks to SydneyAnglicans.net for some free advertising.

The problem of evil: CASE course

For the last couple of years I have been involved in various ways with an organisation called CASE (Centre for Apologetic Education and Scholarship) at New College, UNSW. During May, I will be teaching a new four week course with the inestimable Dr Matheson Russell on the problem of evil.

The Problem of Evil: a tour of Christian responses
A CASE short course taught by Dr Matheson Russell and Mr Byron Smith.
Why does God allow evil and suffering? In this course, we survey the main responses offered by Christian thinkers throughout the ages. Do they stand up to philosophical and theological scrutiny? And how useful are they when it comes to answering the tough questions?

Venue: New College Meeting Room, University of New South Wales
Dates: Thursdays 7-9pm. 10, 17, 24, 31 May (UNSW Wks10-13)
Cost: $88 (full-time students: $44) includes supper and materials.

Week 1 (10/5): After an introduction to the problem of evil and overview of the course, we consider the most popular response to the so-called 'logical' problem of evil amongst Christian philosophers: The free will defence (Leibniz, Plantinga, Swinburne).

Week 2 (17/5): Continuing our discussion of the philosophically-oriented responses to the problem of evil, in the first half of this session we look at two more significant responses to the 'logical' problem of evil: Process theodicy and the Soul-making theodicy (Hick). In the second half we consider the so-called 'evidential' problem of evil.

Week 3 (24/5): The philosophically-oriented literature has its critics, and in this session we consider the arguments of those who consider the whole project of theodicy to be misguided. These criticisms shall lead us into a discussion of the so-called 'practical theodicies' of the theologians such as Soelle and Moltmann.

Week 4 (31/5): In this last session we consider some recent writings by respected theologians Hauerwas, Hart and N.T. Wright. Finally, we bring the course full circle and consider how what we have learned might help us answer tough questions about evil and suffering.

Optional reader: William L. Rowe (ed.), God and the Problem of Evil (Blackwell, 2001). Preferred registration is online here.

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