Giving vodka to a drunk

Do not try to prove your strength by wine-drinking,
     for wine has destroyed many.
As the furnace tests the work of the smith,
     so wine tests hearts when the insolent quarrel.
Wine is very life to human beings
     if taken in moderation.
What is life to one who is without wine?
     It has been created to make people happy.
Wine drunk at the proper time and in moderation
     is rejoicing of heart and gladness of soul.
Wine drunk to excess leads to bitterness of spirit,
     to quarrels and stumbling.
Drunkenness increases the anger of a fool to his own hurt,
     reducing his strength and adding wounds.

- Ecclesiasticus 31.25-30 (NRSV).

Going to the pub for a drink with mates can be a very enjoyable experience. A pint or a dram, some good conversation, some laughs, maybe another drink and some time soaking up one another's company. Another drink? Why not, we're having a good time. With a proper sense of proportion, alcohol can make the heart glad (Psalm 104.15). But before long, drinking becomes drunkenness, and repeated drunkenness makes one a drunkard (cf. Ephesians 5.18; Galatians 5.21). By the time someone is seeing relationships fall apart and their liver, brain, heart, pancreas, nervous system, kidneys, bones, skin and/or sexual function give way from abuse we are well past the point at which enjoyment has turned into self-destruction. Alcohol use represents a gradual progression from a good blessing into a significant evil, without necessarily a clear line where one becomes the other.* The physical and social ills of alcoholism are vindications of (or at least corroborations of) scriptural warnings against drunkenness, yet spiritual injury can occur even prior to obvious relational or physical damage and the believer does not require sociological or medical research on the effects of alcohol abuse to trust the biblical witness on this matter. The latter are helpful confirmations of what has already been revealed, illustrating the principle that we reap what we sow and that part of God's present judgement upon human wickedness is to allow us to experience some of the consequences of our misdeeds.
*Many jurisdictions create such markers through legal limits on blood alcohol levels, but all such lines must be somewhat arbitrary when extended across a whole population with quite different physiological and mental reactions to alcohol.

But this is not really a post about alcoholism.

Seeking more economic growth* for developed economies is like offering vodka to a man already lying a pool of his own vomit. Justifying it by pointing out secondary benefits misses the point; the extra waitstaff will be out of a job unless enough booze is sold, but why should the security of someone's job justify aiding the dissolution of life? With a proper sense of proportion, some kinds of economic growth can be a good blessing on a society. But the pursuit of growth in all circumstances by all means at whatever cost is ultimately self-destructive. There is no hard and fast line between the one and the other. Attempts to calculate ecological footprints and planetary boundaries may give a ballpark idea of where growth starts being suicidal, but that doesn't mean that it is where the problem starts. The desire for growth without reference to the rest of the body is wrong in principle, not just once the symptoms of overshoot start to appear. The ecological and resource crises that are increasingly manifest may illustrate the ruinous trajectory of the desire, but from inception, the desire for growth without reference to context is already based on some combination of greed, myopia, lust for power and a reckless disregard for creaturely limits.
*There is some debate about just what is meant by economic growth. Most definitions at least strongly imply the increasing extraction and exploitation of physical resources for economic purposes, which is my primary concern in this discussion.

Awake, O sleeper

"Awake, O sleeper, rise from the dead and Christ will shine on you."

- Ephesians 5.14

"For since death came through a human being, the resurrection of the dead has also come through a human being; for as all die in Adam, so all will be made alive in Christ."

- 1 Corinthians 15.21-22

Image by CAC.

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.

A bit rich: getting some perspective

The federal budget unveiled this week by the new Labor government has introduced a new measure of what it means to be "rich" in Australia: an annual family income of $150,000. Above this, and various forms of government aid are now reduced or excluded. As a result, the oppressed upper middle class are crying poor.

The average Australian income is about $50,000, which is more than about 98% of the world's population. If you earn $150,000 p.a., then your income exceeds that of about 99.16% of the rest of the world.

I earn less than $30,000 and consider myself abundantly wealthy. True wealth is found in the smiles you give and receive, the tears you shed, the second, third, and fiftieth chances you receive, the people you trust, the hopes you cherish, the mountains you climb, the stories you share, the bounty of sun, wind and rain, and your name spoken in welcome.

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ.

- Ephesians 1.3

Twelve points for the name of the building.

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.

Heaven: not the end of the World XIII

Aliens and strangers
Augustine writes movingly of the civitas Dei peregrina, the pilgrim City of God. By this, he refers to that society of people scattered among the nations on earth who love God more than self, who glory in him, rather than seeking their own glory, who confess Christ and yearn for home, finding themselves homeless wanderers in this world. Indeed, the Latin term peregrina, often translated 'pilgrim' might perhaps be better rendered 'resident alien' or 'sojourner'. It is a word closer to the experience of Tom Hanks in The Terminal than the merry pilgrim-cum-tourists of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales.

To confess Christ is to put yourself on the wrong side of those powers that crucified him, and so to find oneself misunderstood as a rebel. Misunderstood, because just as Christ was a prophet calling the nation back to its true identity, calling humanity back to its Creator, so those who take up their cross and follow him are doing so out of faithfulness to that Creator and thus in solidarity with the groaning creation.

And like the creation, those with the Spirit - the firstfruits of the future presence of God - yearn for the redemption of our bodies, for a transformed world where death is no more, where Christ's gracious kingdom is unopposed, where the riches of God's kindness are poured out with unspeakable joy. We long for the day when the oppressor is no more and the earth is inherited by the meek.

Because of this, we can never feel at home in a world where the rich devour the poor, where unborn strangers are turned back at the borders of life, where Christ is crowned with thorns and anointed with spittle. We are aliens, citizens of the civitas Dei peregrina.

But this is not because our home is elsewhere. It is elsewhen.

And so I wonder whether when Christians are called 'aliens and strangers', this is less like the Jewish exiles in Babylon, who pined for Zion and could not sing for grief, and more like Abraham. Abraham and his immediate descendents are repeatedly called 'aliens' and 'strangers' (Gen 17.8; 21.23, 34; 23.4; 26.3; 28.4; 37.1), though they are already living in the land that God had promised them. Though strangers, the land belongs to them by promise.

For all things are yours, whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas or the world or life or death or the present or the future--all belong to you, and you belong to Christ, and Christ belongs to God.

- 1 Corinthians 3.21-23

Series: I; II; IIa; III; IV; V; VI; VII; VIII; IX; X; XI; XII; XIII; XIV; XV; XVI.
Ten points for guessing the country in the above pic.

Heaven: not the end of the world X

Images of the future
Of course, resurrection is not the only way the New Testament speaks of our future life. Sometimes it is pictured as a banquet (Matt 8.11, 22.2; 25.10; Rev. 19.9) or described as an ‘inheritance’ (Matt. 25.34; Rom. 8.17; 1 Pet. 1.4). However, I personally take these images more metaphorically than resurrection, because once again, I think that it is only in Jesus and the Spirit that we get a picture of the future. Thus his resurrection (and the Christian experience of present inner 'resurrection'/renewal by the Spirit) is our primary access to the future: we will be like him. Of course, our knowledge of Jesus' resurrection (and even of our own inner experience) is incomplete - the risen Jesus did not fit any previous paradigms and the new Christians reached for the language of 'resurrection', while acknowledging also radical transformation. And so even our most concrete knowledge of the future is more evocative than exhaustive.
Series: I; II; IIa; III; IV; V; VI; VII; VIII; IX; X; XI; XII; XIII; XIV; XV; XVI.
For ten points, pick the city (this one really does require random guessing - no shame in being wrong).