Baby Jesus had a beard

A while ago, I posted the classic "Baby Jesus prayer" clip from Talladega Nights. Greg Clarke (director of the Centre for Public Christianity) has now used it as the basis of an opinion piece published on the ABC website. Go and have a look. His article is an invitation to go and have a look at the Jesus of history, of ethics, of politics, of theology, not just of popular culture.

And if you'd like a glimpse into many of the popular (mis)conceptions of Christianity, read a few of the comments. Dan Brown has a lot to answer for.

On Rowan Williams: now available

For those who may be interested, Wipf and Stock have recently published a new volume of essays titled On Rowan Williams: Critical Essays, edited by the irrepressible Dr Matheson Russell from the University of Auckland. The collection includes nine contributions from young Australian Anglicans, such as Ben Myers (Faith and Theology), Michael Jensen (The Blogging Parson), Andrew Cameron, Greg Clarke and more. There is a foreword by Oliver O'Donovan and a twenty-eight page bibliography of all Williams' published works. Here is the blurb from the publisher's site:

Theologian, poet, public intellectual, and clergyman, Rowan Williams is one of the leading lights of contemporary British theology. He has published over twenty books and one hundred scholarly essays in a distinguished career as an academic theologian that culminated in his appointment as Lady Margaret Professor of Divinity at Oxford University. Williams left this post to serve in the Anglican Church, first as Bishop of Monmouth, then Archbishop of Wales, before finally being enthroned in 2003 as the 104th Archbishop of Canterbury.

In this collection of essays, a talented younger generation of Australian theologians critically analyzes the themes that bind together Williams's theology. These sympathetic yet probing essays traverse the full breadth of Williams's work, from his studies on Arius, the Desert Fathers, Hegel, and Trinitarian theology to his more pastoral writings on spirituality, sexuality, politics, and the Anglican Church.

Here is what you get:

Foreword: Australia on Rowan Williams • Oliver O’Donovan
Introduction • Matheson Russell
1. The Ecclesiology of Rowan Williams • Rhys Bezzant
2. The Hidden Center: Trinity and incarnation in the Negative (and Positive) Theology of Rowan Williams • Andrew Moody
3. Disruptive History: Rowan Williams on Heresy and Orthodoxy • Benjamin Myers
4. Krisis? Kritik?: Judgment and Jesus in the Theology of Rowan Williams • Michael Jensen
5. Dispossession and Negotiation: Rowan Williams on Hegel and Political Theology • Matheson Russell
6. The Humanity of Godliness: Spirituality and Creatureliness in Rowan Williams • Byron Smith
7. Desire and Grace: Rowan Williams and the Search for Bodily Wholeness • Andrew Cameron
8. Rowan Williams on War and Peace • Tom Frame
9. The Beauty of God in Cairo and Islamabad: Rowan Williams as Apologist • Greg Clarke

The price is a mere US$29.00, or $23.20 from the Wipf and Stock website. Unfortunately, if you happen to live outside the US, then you'll need to contact the publisher to ask for a special order form (and pay approx US$13 in P&H). I have no idea why any non-US resident would consider buying a book about a Brit by a bunch of Aussies.
Twenty points if you purchase a copy of the book. Prove it by quoting the first sentence of a random page in the book. (Hahaha, what a brilliant marketing ploy!)

UPDATE: A nice review by Bruce Kaye.

The Life of Jesus

The Centre for Public Christianity (CPX) are soon to release a new documentary called The Life of Jesus, a follow up to The Christ Files. Looks like it will be more quality work from Greg Clarke and John Dickson. Here is a short teaser:

H/T Matt.

New(-ish) evidence of early Jesus worship

It seems that it was unearthed back in 2003-05, but I've only just heard about the discovery of a third-century Christian prayer hall in Megiddo, a town in Israel. The remarkable thing about the site (apart from being discovered under a high-security prison still in use) is that it contains well-preserved mosaics complete with inscriptions. In one, a benefactor, Gaianus, is described as a centurion and in another a woman called Akeptous is said to have "offered this table in memorial of the God Jesus Christ".

This is remarkable physical evidence of the beliefs and social composition of early Christian communities in Palestine (more discussion here). In particular, it is yet another refutation of the ludicrous idea (made popular through The Da Vinci Code) that Jesus' divinity was a novel idea pushed on the church by Constantine at Nicea.

This find was brought to my attention by the work of John Dickson and Greg Clarke from the Centre for Public Christianity (CPX), who are putting together a documentary called The Life of Jesus, looking at evidence for the historical Jesus and early Christianity and filmed on location in the Middle East. They are posting short pieces about their experiences on the road here.
Image by N. Davidov, IAA, taken from here. H/T Moffitt for pointing out the SydAng article.

After Christmas

Books to the ceiling,
Books to the sky,
My pile of books is a mile high.
How I love them! How I need them!
I'll have a long beard by the time I read them.

- Arnold Lobel  

Some of the books I received for Christmas: Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino, Anatomy of the Fourth Gospel by R. Alan Culpepper, Guns Germs and Steel: a short history of everybody for the last 13,000 years and Collapse: how societies choose to fail or survive both by Jared Diamond, 666 and all that by Greg Clarke & John Dickson and Surprised by Hope by N. T. Wright. Feeling jealous yet? My wife says my beard is already too long.

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.

Dawkins night review (Part II)

More heat than light?
This is the second part of a review of a Dawkin's discussion forum at church last week. Part I is here.

Dr Greg Clarke continued his discussion of Dawkins with a brief bio highlighting Dawkins' sense of wonder at nature from an early age and his "normal" (nominal) Anglicanism. He now holds a chair at Oxford designed specifically for him - the Chair for the Public Understanding of Science, which he uses to promote Dawinism and atheism (seeing the two as synonymous).

We then turned to considering his highly publicised recent material: The God Delusion and The Root of All Evil?* This material is not aiming at a dispassionate investigation of the issue, but is a polemic aiming for converts to an atheist 'church'. This needn't be a problem, but in these cases it has resulted in material more vigorous than rigorous.
Dawkins was uncomfortable with the sensationalism of the latter title, suggested by the BBC, and argued that at least it ought to end with a question mark.

Dr Clarke (who has a background in literature) noted the rhetorical strategies upon which Dawkins' suasive attempts rely. There is an agressive disdain for theology, without deep engagement with the recognised voices of the church through the centuries; you'll find no discussion of Augustine or Aquinas, Barth or Basil, Calvin or Chrysostom. He refuses to acknowledge probabilistic arguments, assumes you agree and employs emotionally charged terms: belief is a 'virus'. His overall approach relies more on the emotional connection gained through anecdote than argument or fact.

Yet where arguments do appear, they come in four kinds: philosophical, sociological, Darwinian and ethical.

1) Despite his influential work against teleological arguments in The Blind Watchmaker, Dawkins makes little use of philosophical arguments in his recent works. Most prominent is his Boeing 707 argument, which runs roughly thus: the universe is very complex and is therefore unlikely to be here simply by chance (as though a wind might blow through a junkyard and assemble a Boeing 707). Yet God, as the alleged designer of this complex world, must be even more complex than his design, and so is even less likely to exist. While somewhat cute, and nicely taking a common teleological argument as its starting point, it fails appreciate a basic point commonly held by thoughtful Christians. Namely, the belief that God as creator is not simply one more being amongst many beings (even the greatest being amongst beings), but is a different (though perhaps analogous) kind of thing to his creation.

2) His most prominent sociological argument is that mature societies become more atheistic. Dr Clarke noted that while there is some evidence that prosperous societies are more atheistic, this reveals more about us (and our beliefs) than about God. It is important to both the Christian and the sociologist to investigate the function of religious belief (or the lack of it) in the life of the individual/community.

3) Dr Clarke noted that the technical details of Dawkins' Darwinian arguments were not his [Greg's] area of expertise, but that philosophy (especially philosophy of science) is not Dawkins' area of expertise. Darwinism as an explanation for the origin of the species is one thing, but it is something else when applied beyond this sphere to become an encyclopaedic worldview that attempts to answer all questions. Such explanations, though not necessarily ruled out a priori, are not in the realm of hard science. In particular, Dawkins' arguments about belief transmission through the notion of 'memes' is highly speculative.

4) Dawkins' ethical arguments for atheism are by far his most interesting and strongest. Dawkins finds belief in God disgusting and morally corrupting. He offers his own version of the ten commandments, a set of universal moral principles readily acceptable by all reasonable people. Dr Clarke found this claim particularly naïve. Not only does it ignore philosophical debate problematising any easy reference to universal rationality as a basis for morality,* it also fails to offer any advice on what to do with the ubiquitous problem of moral failure. Even if we can get everyone to recognise universal ethical rules, what shall the church of atheism do when a member sins? (More to come)
*I thought more could have been said about Dawkins' Enlightenment assumptions regarding Reason, particularly his thoroughgoing opposition of faith to reason.
After the heroic efforts in the comments on the previous Dawkins post, I offer the same competition on this picture: twelve points for the best explanation of the relevance of this picture to this post.

Dawkins night review (Part I)

The New Atheism
A few thoughts from Thursday's discussion forum: The Dawkins Delusion?

Dr Greg Clarke (amongst other things, the newly appointed director of MSCI) gave a lengthy presentation followed by questions and discussion. I had hoped to be able to begin the night by showing some clips from The Root of All Evil? to set the mood, but this fell through.

Dr Clarke opened by asking 'why is religion back on the agenda?'. It was not long ago that religion in general and Christianity in particular were rarely mentioned in mainstream news media. However, even a casual glance today will turn up many examples (does anyone know of any research on this? i.e. the frequency of 'religious' issues in news media over the last few decades). Greg suggested three possible reasons: (a) post September 11 fascination with religious extremism. This is focussed upon, but not limited to, Islam. (b) The results of contemporary research indicating the positive benefits of religion. For example, one meta-study summarising hundreds of studies on the effects of relgion found that 79% of studies indicate a positive correlation between religious affiliation and life/health benefits (longevity, marital stability, mental health, etc.), 13% found no relationship, 7% gave confused results and only 1% discovered a negative correlation. It seems 'religion' is good for you. The imprecision of this term is a weakness of the studies, but since we're talking about public perception, this is a tangent. And (c) it is now possible to begin to look back on the twentieth century with a little distance and many commentators call it 'the century in which we lost God'. It was also, from one perspective, the century that demonstrated the failures of atheism as a social agenda.

The last few years have seen the rise of 'the new atheism', represented most prominently by Dawkins (but also by Hitchens - God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything, Harris - The End of Faith/Letter to a Christian Nation, Dennett - Breaking the Spell and Onfray - Atheist Manifesto: The Case Against Christianity, Judaism, and Islam). Dr Clarke claimed that this movement represents the increasingly shrill declarations of those fighting a losing battle. He suggested that of all the responses to this publishing phenomenon - Christian anger, atheist delight, agnostic puzzlement - the least appropriate is that of the 'apatheist': I don't know and I don't care. Life is more precious than that. (More to come)
Twelve points for the best explanation of the relevance of this picture to this post.

The Dawkins Delusion

This Thursday, Dr Greg Clarke (until recently, director of CASE at UNSW, now director of MCSI at Macquarie Uni) will be leading an interactive forum considering the views of biologist, author and avowed atheist Richard Dawkins. All welcome.

7.30 pm, 28th June
All Souls Café
No charge
Supper provided
RSVP appreciated