Religious illiteracy

How much do you know about Christianity and other world religions? Test yourself on the questions below.

I've recently come across this 2010 survey by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, which surveyed 3,412 people, asking them 32 questions (most multiple choice) about some fairly basic pieces of religious knowledge. These were not difficult questions. Although they did not ask "Is the Pope Catholic?", they came pretty close.

Incredibly, the average score was 16 out of 32, with self-identified Christians scoring notably worse than atheists and agnostics. Only 8 people (0.002%) got all 32 questions correct. Since most of the questions were multiple choice, even guessing every answer would lead to an average score of 9.05 correct, yet one in seven did not even rise this high.

Now, it might be easy (particularly if we happen to have studied in this area for some time) to do the quiz and feel pretty smug about our general knowledge of basic religious concepts and figures. Or to laugh at the failure of most Christians in the US to be able to answer even basic questions about Christianity, being soundly beaten by atheists. But the point is that this survey actually has significant implications for how the church thinks about its mission. Yes, it was done in the US (and there were four questions specific to the US context asking about the the Constitution and Supreme Court rulings), but I'm unsure that Australians (for instance) would necessarily score much higher.

We're not (on the whole) surrounded by people who have tried Christianity and found it wanting, but by people who simply don't know what it is, apart perhaps from a few media-derived stereotypes. And this probably includes many of the people in the pews next to us.

Here are the questions, arranged under various themes and slightly abbreviated. Precise wording is available here. The ordering of the multiple choice answers varied.

Bible
1. What is the first book of the Bible? (Open-ended)
   
2. What are the names of the first four books of the New Testament, that is, the four Gospels? (Open-ended)
   
3. Where, according to the Bible, was Jesus born? Bethlehem, Jerusalem, Nazareth or Jericho?
   
4. Which of these is NOT in the Ten Commandments? Do unto others…, no adultery, no stealing, keep Sabbath?
   
5. Which figure is associated with remaining obedient to God despite suffering? Job, Elijah, Moses or Abraham?
   
6. Which figure is associated with leading the exodus from Egypt? Moses, Job, Elijah or Abraham?
   
7. Which figure is associated with willingness to sacrifice his son for God? Abraham, Job, Moses or Elijah?
   
   Elements of Christianity
   
8. What is Catholic teaching about bread and wine in Communion? They become body and blood, or are symbols?
   
9. Which group traditionally teaches that salvation is through faith alone? Protestants, Catholics, both or neither?
   
10. Was Mother Teresa Catholic, Jewish, Buddhist, Hindu or Mormon?
    
11. What is the name of the person whose writings and actions inspired the Reformation? Luther, Aquinas or Wesley?
    
12. Who was a preacher during the First Great Awakening? Jonathan Edwards, Charles Finney or Billy Graham?
    
    Elements of Judaism
    
13. When does the Jewish Sabbath begin? Friday, Saturday or Sunday?
    
14. Was Maimonides Jewish, Catholic, Buddhist, Hindu or Mormon?
    
    Elements of Mormonism
    
15. When was the Mormon religion founded? After 1800, between 1200 and 1800, or before 1200 A.D.?
    
16. The Book of Mormon tells of Jesus appearing to people in what area? The Americas, Middle East or Asia?
    
17. Was Joseph Smith Mormon, Catholic, Jewish, Buddhist or Hindu?
    
    
    
    World Religions
    
18. Is Ramadan the Islamic holy month, the Hindu festival of lights or a Jewish day of atonement?
    
19. Do you happen to know the name of the holy book of Islam? (Open-ended)
    
20. Which religion aims at nirvana, the state of being free from suffering? Buddhism, Hinduism or Islam?
    
21. Is the Dalai Lama Buddhist, Hindu, Jewish, Catholic or Mormon?
    
22. In which religion are Vishnu and Shiva central figures? Hinduism, Islam or Taoism?
    
23. What is the religion of most people in India? Hindu, Buddhist, Muslim or Christian?
    
24. What is the religion of most people in Pakistan? Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist or Christian?
    
25. What is the religion of most people in Indonesia? Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist or Christian?
    
26. Who is the king of Gods in Greek mythology? Zeus, Mars or Apollo?
    
    Atheism and Agnosticism
    
27. Is an atheist someone who does NOT believe in God, believes in God, or is unsure whether God exists?
    
28. Is an agnostic someone who is unsure whether God exists, does NOT believe in God, or believes in God?
    
    Religion in Public Life
    
29. What does Constitution say about religion? Separation of church and state, emphasize Christianity, or nothing?
    
30. According to the Supreme Court, can a public school teacher lead a class in prayer?
    
31. According to the Supreme Court, can a public school teacher read from the Bible as an example of literature?
    
32. According to the Supreme Court, can a public school teacher offer a class comparing the world’s religions?

The hardest question was #14, which only 8% got correct. If everyone had guessed, you'd expect at least 20% would have got it. The easiest was #30, which admittedly only had two options, yet 89% were able to answer correctly.

Christian climate symposium in Melbourne

I asked recently what kinds of discussions and actions were already happening amongst Australian Christian about climate. Kara sent me this flyer for a one day symposium in Melbourne that looks interesting.

Justice and love: why this Christian cares about climate

"The crux of climate change for Christians is the poorest, most vulnerable countries are those hardest hit by global warming. The poor are least able to adapt to the impact of climate change and ironically, have contributed least to it. The carbon footprint of the poorest 1 billion people on the planet is estimated to be around 3% of the world’s total footprint. This is the social injustice of climate change: poor, developing countries will suffer because of the fossil fuels emitted by developed nations. We are commanded to love our neighbour. [...] God requires that His people oppose social injustice and open their hearts to the poor and vulnerable. For the church to turn a blind eye to the injustice of climate change is to turn our back on God’s heart for the poor."

John Cook, founder of the justly famous site Skeptical Science, has written a short piece in Eternity magazine explaining why he takes climate change seriously as a Christian. You can read the rest here.
H/T Liz.

The theology of Harry Potter #7: book vs film

Brad Littlejohn has an excellent exposition of the theology of the final Harry Potter book in comparison to the final film (which doesn't stack up so well). If you ever wanted someone to demonstrate that there was much more going on christologically in Rowling than the all too common and wearily superficial assumption that her depiction of magic equalled a nefarious seduction of young minds into Satanic arts, then read his piece.

Warning: film plot spoilers.

Can Christians ignore climate change?

"It is well past time for those of us still at the carnival of climate denial to exit the gates and allow the love of God to help us see and face the truth about climate change or global warming and the need to act. Once we do, we will discover that overcoming global warming presents us with tremendous opportunities to love God back and create a better world. Let me clarify things right up front: climate inaction is no longer an option for those who have the love of God in their hearts."

- Rev Jim Ball, Leaving the Carnival of Climate Change Denial
to Join the Next Great Cause of Freedom.
H/T Liz.

Inaction on climate change is no longer an option for faithful Christians. So says Jim Ball in this brief and polemic piece addressing various barriers to action that rich Christians may face. While somewhat simplified (it is only a short piece), identifying such barriers is a good exercise. Where are you stuck at?

Perhaps we could even suggest a few more: ignorance of what actions to take; distraction by other good things; despair over the inadequacy of our possible actions. Indeed, back here I considered nine such barriers and suggested ways in which faith in God, love for Jesus and hope from the Holy Spirit open new paths for us through them.

It is encouraging to see a Christian leader in the US publish such an article in a widely-read forum. Ball has also written a book that I haven't got to yet, called Global Warming and the Risen LORD: Christian discipleship and climate change. He is not a lonely voice; an increasing number of books have come out in the last couple of years offering Christian accounts of ecological responsibility. Yet there are still plenty of Christian leaders all too willing to speak up on behalf of the fossil fuel companies, and too many followers of Jesus who haven't yet heard the good news of Jesus applied to an increasingly damaged world.

What does development mean?

This is the best brief account of development I have heard. If you are at all concerned for global poverty and the role of faith communities in global development (whether from the perspective of personally belonging to one, or from the experience of being puzzled or suspicious about the place of religious groups in these matters), I commend these thirty-seven minutes to your attention.
H/T Jarrod.

Why are Christians scared of the sciences?

There is a common perception that Christianity and the sciences are mortal enemies, that faith and reason are mutually exclusive, that following Christ requires the rejection of a host of well-established scientific understandings (and vice versa).

I don't get it.

My theological convictions invite me to see scientific research as an expression of common grace rather than a threat to cultural identity. Having a self rooted and established in Christ can mean that we are liberated from the pursuit of identity in a community of like-minded opposition to perceived cultural opponents (those god-hating egg-heads!). Praise God for the sciences and for those amongst us who serve the common good through careful attention to the world that lies in front of our eyes!

Of course like all good gifts, scientific endeavour can be abused, scientific communities can express hostility to the grace of God, scientific insights be applied to destructive and enslaving technologies and the heady power of empirical observation can tempt those who taste it to reductive philosophies of scientism that (ironically) overstep the reach of empirical oberservation. The ubiquitous presence of sin and relative absence of wisdom undermines but does not erase or invalidate the dignity of scientific research. Abuse does not rule out proper use.

Indeed, the church itself can be a place of abuse, closed to divine grace and trapped in patterns that diminish life. Let us focus on the extraction of woody fibres of great magnitude protruding from our own ocular organs before presuming to conduct moral surgery on the vision of others, or pronounce others blind when we are the ones falling into a pit.

Scientists are not enemies; that label belongs on fear, greed, ignorance, folly and self-deception.

Dying and killing for blasphemy

Indeed, an hour is coming when those who kill you will think that by doing so they are offering worship to God.

- John 16.2b.

Shahbaz Bhatti, Pakistani government minister for minorities, was assassinated this week for speaking up as a Christian against Pakistan's blasphemy laws. He was the only Christian minister in the Pakistani government and his murderers left behind a tract claiming responsibility in the name of "Taliban al-Qaida".

Only days before, he had given an interview in which he addressed threats against his life (see above): "The forces of violence, militant [?] organisations, the Taliban and [?] al-Qaida, they want to impose their radical philosophy in Pakistan. And whoever stands against their radical philosophy, they threaten them. When I am leading this campaign against the Sharia law for the abolishment of blasphemy law and speaking for the oppressed and marginalised Christian and other persecuted minorities, these Taliban threaten. But I want to share that I believe in Jesus Christ, who has given his own life for us. I know what is the meaning of [the] cross. And I am following of the cross. And I am ready to die for a cause. I am living for my community and suffering people and I will die to defend their rights. So these threats and these warnings can not change my opinion and principles. I would prefer to die for my principle and for the justice rather [than] compromise on these threats."

May he rest in peace awaiting a glorious resurrection.

Shahbaz Bhatti is far from the only Christian this week who has died for his faith, but his high profile and eloquent and timely witness are likely to see this issue receive a little media attention. His death is a reminder that Christians fight for the truth by being willing to die, rather than being willing to kill. Killing to prevent or punish blasphemy is itself blasphemous against the one who gave his life as the true and living way. He was himself killed for blasphemy (Mark 14.64).

Of course Christians would never consider killing Muslims to be a good thing or condone state sanctioned violence with this goal, would we? We would never seek a spurious theological rationale for our fears in order to justify murder or oppression, would we?

Christianity: a tool of villainy under the banner of progress?

“Despite its protests to the contrary, modern Christianity has become willy-nilly the religion of the state and the economic status quo. Because it has been so exclusively dedicated to incanting anemic souls into heaven, it has, by a kind of ignorance, been made the tool of much earthly villainy. It has, for the most part, stood silently by, while a predatory economy has ravaged the world, destroyed its natural beauty and health, divided and plundered its human communities and households. It has flown the flag and chanted the slogans of empire. It has assumed with the economists that “economic forces” automatically work for good, and has assumed with the industrialists and militarists that technology determines history. It has assumed with almost everybody that “progress” is good, that it is good to be modern and up with the times. It has admired Caesar and comforted him in his depredations and defaults. But in its de facto alliance with Caesar, Christianity connives directly in the murder of Creation. For, in these days, Caesar is no longer a mere destroyer of armies, cities, and nations. He is a contradictor of the fundamental miracle of life. A part of the normal practice of his power is his willingness to destroy the world. He prays, he says, and churches everywhere compliantly pray with him. But he is praying to a God whose works he is prepared at any moment to destroy. What could be more wicked than that, or more mad?

"The religion of the Bible, on the contrary, is a religion of the state and the status quo only in brief moments. In practice, it is a religion for the correction equally of people and of kings. And Christ’s life, from the manger to the cross, was an affront to the established powers of his time, as it is to the established powers of our time. Much is made in churches of the “good news” of the gospels. Less is said of the gospel’s bad news, which is that Jesus would have been horrified by just about every “Christian” government the world has ever seen. He would be horrified by our government and its works, and it would be horrified by him. Surely no sane and thoughtful person can imagine any government of our time sitting comfortably at the feet of Jesus, who is telling them to “Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them that despitefully use you and persecute you…” (Matt. 5:44).

— Wendell Berry, "Christianity and the Survival of Creation"
in Sex, Economy, Freedom, Community: Eight Essays (full essay available here).

Quotes like this can be hard to hear. It can be tempting to ignore them.

Sometimes, when I talk with people about some of the crises of our times and suggest that Christianity might have something to say to us at this historical moment that is interesting and worth paying attention to, I am told that the church is part of the problem, not the solution.*

I often feel more than a little sympathy for this comment. Christian defence of the indefensible (which is quite different from defence of the defenceless!) or unreflective acquiescence in the status quo are both depressingly common. The Christian church has, for all its noble achievements, also many sad failings.

To be Christian is to recognise that this is nearly always the case, and so to expect that I will very frequently find myself contributing to the problems of the world. This is one implication of the doctrine of sin. However, to be a follower of Christ means also being open to grace: to the word of forgiveness, the task of repentance and the possibility of liberation. Such an openness requires the belief that grace ultimately superabounds wherever sin abounds, and so trusting that sin is not an ultimate reality, and so can be turned away from. It is unnecessary.

This openness requires practices that build into our sense of self the expectation of change and growth. It means remaining open to the wounds of false accusation in case they turn out to be less false than we first thought. And it means immersion in the scriptural narratives until what appears normal about life today is revealed as abnormal.
*The idea that Christian ideas are to blame for ecological degradation has a long history within the environmental movement, arising from Lynn White's seminal paper "The Historical Root of our Ecological Crisis" in which he accused certain elements of the Christian tradition as standing at the root of exploitative attitudes towards the non-human world. I won't add here to the huge amount of commentary on this article (which has its strengths and weaknesses) nor to explore the degree to which these charges stick (short answer: somewhat, but by themselves these ideas are neither necessary nor sufficient as historical explanations for the rise of exploitative attitudes).

Can Christians be capitalists?

"God is a relational being, whose priority is not economic growth, but right relationships both between humanity and himself and between human beings. Christ's injunction to 'love God and love your neighbour' points to the priority of relational wealth over financial wealth because love is a quality of relationships."

- Ross Gittins, summarising Michael Schulter

Ross Gittins, economics editor of the Sydney Morning Herald, has done a good job summarising a paper by Michael Schluter of the Relationships Foundation, a Christian think tank dedicated to re-conceptualising social and economic relations from a relational rather than purely economic standpoint.

Schluter's short paper makes five main criticisms of capitalism as we know it today: its exclusively materialistic vision; its tendency to offer rewards without responsibilities; its limitation of liabilities on shareholders; its tendency to disconnect people from places; and its undermining of social safeguards. Whether these criticisms apply to all forms of capitalism or only to what Schluter calls "corporate capitalism" is a question for further discussion, but as a brief and accessible Christian critique of trends in contemporary economic theory and practice, it's not a bad effort.

The whole paper is worth reading, but if you'd like a slightly condensed version, then at least look at Gittens' summary in the SMH. If you enjoyed Schluter's critique, you might also like to look at his brief outline of a possible alternative approach, called Beyond Capitalism: Towards a relational economy.
H/T Dad, John Shorter and Josh Kuswadi, who all sent me links to this article. I'm touched to know that so many people associate me with anti-capitalism.

What does Christianity have to do with climate change?

And specifically, what does the Christian message have to offer to the enormous UN conference currently underway in Copenhagen?

In a number of previous posts, I've mentioned the work of the Centre of Public Christianity (a.k.a. CPX) in Sydney. The high standards of their online work might now be under threat since they just published a short piece I wrote attempting to answer that question, titled "Facing the truth in Copenhagen". I outline two common mistaken answers and their alternatives. Go and check it out. Or at least go and check out the rest of the CPX site.

Link love

It's been a while since I showed some link love. Some of these are more recent than others.

Blogs
Andrew Errington has finished an interesting series on the synoptic Gospels and the nature of Scripture in which he explores what the similarities and differences between the synoptics means for our doctrine of Scripture.

Kim Fabricius argues that faith means thinking outside the box.

Brad asks "Is Jesus actually likeable?".

Doug Chaplin ponders what Rowan could have said to Benedict after the latest development in Anglican-Catholic relations.

Other links
A. N. Wilson argues that we no longer know how to die or to grieve.

A quick surf before breakfast: the interwebs uses 10% of US electricity supply, and 5% of global supply.

Four Word Film Reviews. Hundreds of films reviewed in four words or less. For example, Titanic: "Icy dead people". My favourite, Saving Private Ryan: "Brother gets own bedroom".

Thesis question articulation VII: Christian

Christian: part one
Series begins back here.
Who is the subject of moral reflection? Who is it who must awaken and be attentive? Although this issue could be broadened to the more general question of moral attentiveness in the predicament of ecologically-threatened industrialism, this project is primarily concerned with the Christian moral subject. The Christian moral subject is one whose life is shaped by the Christian gospel of the life, death, resurrection, ascension and return of Jesus the Messiah. This project will be grounded in this narrative and take various Christian thinkers as dialogue partners.

Taking this lens for our investigation need not be of narrow interest only to Christian believers as Christians have generally claimed that the life of Jesus is relevant to all human individuals and societies.

I had considered modifying moral attentiveness with ecclesial rather than Christian to emphasise that the moral subject is always formed in community and indicate that I am interested in social rather than purely personal ethics. Indeed, this issue is an important one because the crisis we face is not simply a threat to society, but a threat to sociality. The kinds of scenarios haunting the collective apocalyptic imagination are of the bonds of affection being loosened or broken. Fear can either isolate individuals or turn a society into a mob, giving them a false unity. I shall argue that the Christian church at its best is a model, or a promise, of a society capable of sustaining moral attentiveness, of sustaining genuine sociality, without being overwhelmed by fear. Nonetheless, I have retained the more general term Christian rather than the more specific ecclesial.

It is also worth stating that the relevant subject of moral attentiveness is not merely professional moral theologians or ethicists, but all Christian believers and communities.
This post is part of a series in which I am outlining my current research question. My present working title, which this series seeks to explain, is "Anxious about tomorrow": The possibility of Christian moral attentiveness in the predicament of societal unsustainability.
A. Societal unsustainability: part one; part two
B. Predicament: part one; part two
C. Moral attentiveness: part one; part two
D. Christian: part one
E. Possibility: part one
F. Summary: part one

Atheist: what Africa needs is more Christianity

This Times Online article by Matthew Parris is worth a look. He argues that Africa's biggest problem is a traditional belief system that encourages passivity and is forced to admit, despite his own atheist beliefs, that Christianity makes a difference.

Starting with Christ: the limits of neutrality

On being a Christian fanatic

"The Christian who lives by faith has the right to justify his moral actions on the basis of his faith."

- Hans Urs von Balthasar, "Nine Propositions on Christian Ethics"
in Principles of Christian Morality (trans. Graham Harrison;
San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1986 [1975]), 77.

Christian ethics (and theology more generally for that matter) does not attempt to discover a "neutral" starting point without presuppositions and build arguments from first principles. We start, as everyone always starts, in media res, in the middle of things. To leave one's beliefs and commitments behind when pursuing intellectual inquiry makes for less, not more, interesting and valid conclusions. Of course such commitments and beliefs will be revisable (the first freedom is the freedom to repent), but attempts at neutrality are nearly always simply a reversion to the background assumptions of the culture one finds oneself in. Such a supposed neutrality is thus less likely to lead to critical reflection upon the conditions of possibility of that culture and its faults and elisions than a perspective that begins unashamed of its convictions and enters into dialogue with other such interlocutors.

This has been an abstract discussion of a principle that makes more sense in the concrete. Jesus is the Christ and reflection upon our actions and ways of life (i.e. ethics) must first respond to that announcement. This can seem like too small or particular a starting point to sustain and shape the whole of life. Yet as we grow more aware of the contours of that reality and all that it encompasses, we are led deeper into the richness and complexity of our existence. In Christ, in that one word, we find the entire world and ourselves as well.

It might also seem like an irredeemably partisan commencement, from which no agreement or peace may ever be reached. This is both true, and false. It is true, because Christ makes claims upon the world and upon our lives that stand in tension with all other claims. No one can serve two masters. There are two ways to walk: one broad, one narrow. Those who are not for Christ are against him.

And yet walking the way of Christ is a peculiar kind of opposition to "the world". Christ is hostile to hostility, he takes captivity captive, he kills death, destroys destruction, opposes opposition, hates hatred, excludes exclusion; he loves the world. His is a battle in which he prefers to be killed than kill. His "party" can thus never be merely partisan. Christianity can never conceive of itself as one viewpoint amongst and against others, one religion amongst and against others, one lifestyle amongst and against others. "Our struggle is not against flesh and blood" (Ephesians 6.12). The way of Christ is a restless one, never content with the divisions and contradictions of human society, including the contradiction and division created when you simply try to dissolve such differences by a well-meaning but myopic relativism.

Therefore, the church, as the faction of Christ, can not be reduced sociologically to one cultural or political agenda. The church does not have a social program, it is not an interest group. Trusting in the God who raised Christ from the dead, it is to look not to its own interests, but to the interests of others. It embodies, and so holds out to the world, the promise of a society in which the interests and rights of one group need not be understood to be in competition with those of another. It believes and so pursues (imperfectly and provisionally) the common good.

Debate aftermath

I mentioned the other day that my friend Mike Paget was going to be debating an atheist on the topic "Which makes more sense: Atheism or Christianity?". Since one always comes up with the best replies about 20 minutes too late, Mike is putting some post-debate thoughts on his blog: "Oh, and another thing...". I bet McCain wishes he could do the same.

Since tomorrow is my birthday (divisible by both 5 and 3), I am about to pick up a hire car for a weekend away with Jess at a mystery destination (if I tell you, then future points might be too easy). Cue birthday wishes (I felt that those without Facebook might like some gratuitous help). See you next week.
Speaking of points, I'll give fifteen to the first to correctly guess the location this Sydney shot was taken from (on my birthday last year).

Three questions to ask an atheist

A friend of mine is about to debate an atheist in a public forum tomorrow on the topic "Which makes more sense: Atheism or Christianity?". The planned format of the event provides each speaker a chance to ask three questions of the other (thirty seconds to frame the question and then three minutes to answer it). Whichever side you might identify with, what question(s) would you ask?

Here is a suggestion to kick off the discussion (remember, I'm more interested in hearing questions than answers at the moment): "I find in the best kind of atheism a protest against superstitious explanations and self-interested religion. What do you find most attractive about Christianity?"

For those in Sydney, the details of the event are as follows.

Participants: Alan Conradi (a member of the Atheist Foundation of Australia)* and Michael Paget (Anglican Chaplain to UTS and Executive Pastor at St Barnabas' Anglican Church Broadway)
Topic: "Which makes more sense: Atheism or Christianity?"
Date: Thursday, October 16, 2008
Time: 6:00pm - 8:00pm
Location: Union Theatre Gallery Lounge, University of Technology, Sydney
Cost: I assume it is free, but I could be wrong.

*Based on the definition of atheism found at this website - "Atheism is the acceptance that there is no credible scientific or factually reliable evidence for the existence of a god, gods or the supernatural." - I hereby call myself an atheist (depending what one means by "factually reliable", a slippery tautology).

The Word became flesh: looking again at Jesus II

A sermon from John 1.1-14: Part II
Introduction: What do you see?

Image from hereDo you remember those 3D Magic Eye pictures that were all the rage a few years ago? If you held the book at the right angle and squinted your eyes and looked into the middle distance and thought about nothing and stood on one foot, then you still couldn’t see the image? Or maybe you were one of those frustrating people who could always see it without trying. Or maybe you pretended you were, because you didn’t want to look stupid when everyone else could see it.

Maybe Christianity feels a bit like that to you. Everyone seems to get it, or pretends they do. They speak as if God were real, they act as if it’s normal to think some guy came back from the dead, they tell you they feel God’s love, forgiveness or presence. But you just don’t get it and you’re faced with the choice. Do you admit your blindness and call it all a hoax, or do you go along with the crowd, saying the right words, doing the right things, in order to fit in? Is this a familiar feeling?

Of course, there’s a third option. To keep looking. To look again.

This series on John’s gospel over the next few weeks is an invitation to look again at Jesus. Perhaps it’s never ‘clicked’ for you, the stories of Jesus seem so many coloured dots on a page. Or maybe church seems too familiar, these services feel dull and lifeless, the readings say what you expect and you’ve stopped really looking. Jesus is like a piece of furniture you no longer even notice. Your spiritual life feels like you’re simply going through the motions. Look again. Whether you’re puzzled by him or have simply grown too used to hearing his name, Mary’s son from Nazareth is worth a second look.

And John will be our guide. Most readers notice that the fourth Gospel is somewhat different to the other three. It is at once more straightforward, and yet contains hidden depths. Perhaps John had reflected for longer on the overwhelming and life-changing experience of living with Jesus. He has thought carefully about how to invite us to look at Jesus, and then look at him again. John is book not only worth reading, but re-reading. Our passage has three key terms and we’ll look at each in turn: the word, the light, and flesh.
Ten points for the first to see the magic eye puzzle.
Series: I; II; III; IV; V; VI; VII; VIII; IX; X.

The fine print

Is Christianity too good to be true?

Christianity Today looks at tomorrow

The flagship of popular evangelicalism in the US, Christianity Today, has published an article by their editor-in-chief David Neff in which he argues that a healthy biblical eschatology leads us to more not less concern for ecological responsibility. Titled "Second Coming Eschatology: We care for the environment precisely because God will create a new earth", the article concludes like this:

When I was growing up, eschatology meant "end times"—that is, my church focused on the timing and manner of final events. But Jesus and the apostles played down the time element and even the manner of the End. Instead, they emphasized the inbreaking of God's rule and the way our ability to see his rule helps to transform the present.
If we are given that ability to see God at work, bringing the present into contact with the End, we cannot be indifferent to the way things are. We cannot be deaf to the groanings of Creation. And we can treasure every gift God gives us as a sign of his promises."

Articles like this give me some hope that the tide of popular Christian opinion may yet be turning.