Knowing is being known

New blog with a nice name from a quality guy: "Knowing is being known is a blog for Biblical exegesis and Biblical theology and occasionally your standard issue straight up and down right regular Theology." Antman was in my year at college.

Another friend (indeed another Anthony) and ex-MTC student recently started a blog: On Second Thoughts by leading point-scorer Anthony. He seems to have had second thoughts since then (like so many). Hands up, how many have blogs with fewer than ten posts? I wonder what the infant mortality rate for blogs is...

Heroes vs saints

Nice post from Ben Witherington on the difference between heroes and saints.

Red and Green

A Game
Divide class into four or five equal teams.
Distribute ten lollies* to each team.
Each round, each team gives a scrap of paper to the teacher with either 'red' or 'green' written on it, without showing the other teams what is written.
If all teams select green, every team gets another lolly from the teacher.
If one team selects red, all the green teams give a lolly to the red team.
If more than one team selects red, every team gives the teacher a lolly.
*Lolly = Australian/NZ English for confectionary/sweets/candy.

I played this game with my secondary school classes during the final days of the school year and then used it to begin a discussion on selfish versus co-operative behaviour. I would begin the game by displaying a large jar filled with lollies and say that it was quite possible for them to empty it if they were smart. Without fail, in every class I would win back all the lollies, often so quickly that I would give them a second chance with another ten.

Why do we all select red so often?

I would love to try playing this game with adults, replacing lollies with coins - or notes.
Ten points for naming the two players in the picture. Another ten for explaining their 'game'. Ten more for the artist. And a final ten for the location of the picture. No more than one correct answer per person.

Thanksgiving service

Give thanks to the LORD for he is good;
His steadfast love endures forever!

- Psalm 136.1

Personal update and an invitation
We've now had a week or so for the good news of the latest scan to sink in. After initially finding ourselves exhausted and relieved, we're now starting to look ahead to a life of new and renewed possibilities. Before we get there, however, it is appropriate to mark this point in our journey with gratitude for God's goodness to us through so many people. And so we would like to invite you to a special service of thanksgiving.

Saturday May 19th, 10am
All Souls Anglican Church, Leichhardt (cnr Norton & Marion Streets)
Morning tea will be provided following the service.
RSVP would be appreciated. All welcome.

From here, I will continue to have scans every few months for at least two years. I will post any further updates on my health blog. Thank you for your support, prayers, love and generosity. God has blessed us so much through you all.

We've been reminded that life is so much more than the abundance of possessions, as Jesus says - indeed, it is more than the abundance of health. Our society often seems obsessed with health; could this be an expression of a deep fear of death? Our hope is not simply to avoid dying for a little longer (as good as that is!), but for death itself to be overthrown in resurrection.

May God fill you with hope and joy because Jesus is risen, and so the end of death has begun.

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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The psychology of loss

Which would you choose?

(a) You will surely suffer a loss of $890 OR
(b) You have a 90% chance of suffering a loss of $1,000 and a 10% chance of suffering no loss.

Ross Gittins has written a fascinating article in the SMH reporting on some psychological research suggesting reasons why the advice of hawks is given more weight than that of doves.

ANZAC Day and Armenia

The 25th of April is ANZAC Day, a public holiday observed in Australia and New Zealand (and a few Pacific island nations: Niue, Tonga, Samoa, Cook Islands). ANZAC is an acronym of Australian and New Zealand Army Corps, and the holiday commemorates the disasterous landing of ANZAC forces (amongst many others) at the Gallipoli penninsula in Turkey on 25th April 1915. It is also a day to remember all those who have served in the armed forces.

I was going to write a post about Australian identity or militarism (common reflections on this day), but having just stumbled across this post by Christopher, I have started doing some reading on the Armenian genocide instead (see also here).

Starting the day before the Gallipoli landing (24th April 1915) and continuing until 1923 (with a break between 1918 and 1920), the predominately Christian Armenians were killed or relocated in their hundreds of thousands. The total death toll may have been around a million, though figures vary widely. The Turkish government continues to deny that the violence was systematic and centrally organised. The terms 'crimes against humanity' and 'holocaust' were coined to describe these events, which were widely reported in the West.

I feel ashamed at my ignorance of the whole affair. As Christopher says: Lest we forget.

Wright on Penal Substitution

N. T. Wright, the sometimes controversial evangelical Anglican bishop of Durham, has recently published an article on the Fulcrum website reviewing a book about the doctrine of penal substitutionary atonement. As always, it is probably better to read the original if this is a debate that floats your boat. Here is a taste:

To throw away the reality because you don’t like the caricature is like cutting out the patient’s heart to stop a nosebleed. Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures, and all because of the unstoppable love of the one creator God. There is ‘no condemnation’ for those who are in Christ, because on the cross God condemned sin in the flesh of the Son who, as the expression of his own self-giving love, had been sent for that very purpose. ‘He did not spare his very own Son, but gave him up for us all.’ That’s what Good Friday was, and is, all about.

Water

Water shortages have again hit the news in Australia, with the announcement that without significant rains in the next six to eight weeks, irrigators on the crucial Murray-Darling system will not receive any water allocations, threatening millions of dollars of agricultural production. Around 40% of our food comes from this region, an enormous catchment covering most of the eastern states west of the Great Dividing Range. But rainfall is very erratic, and most of the region is presently in the worst drought in a hundred years. This may or may not have something to do with climate change.

Closer to home, Warragamba dam (Sydney's major water source) is still below 40% - despite heavy rain yesterday and more today, most of which missed the catchment area (spare a thought - and prayer - for Brisbane, of course, with dam levels below 20% last time I heard).

The need for water crosses cultural boundaries and underscores our shared humanity. Clean drinking water remains one of the major global divides between rich and poor. Over a billion people lack access to safe water and according to some estimates up to 80% of human sickness is the result of drinking poor water.
Twelve points if you can name the country containing this aqueduct. Photo by HCS.

"The peace of Christ is our only true security"

Nice post on building walls and seeking peace over at Disruptive Grace. Here's a taste:

In order for there to be true reconciliation and lasting peace, parties must see each other face to face. One's picture of the other must remain open and dynamic. Those enemies who do not see one another have the wildest imagination for seeing evil in the other.

Crude Impact

This Tuesday at 8.30 pm SBS will be screening a documentary called "Crude Impact" about oil dependency/addiction and Peak Oil. The trailer is here. Apologies to non-Australian readers. H/T Dave Lankshear.

O'Donovan on revising tradition

No element formed by tradition can claim absolute allegiance. But the right to revise traditions is not everybody's right; it has to be won by learning their moral truths as deeply as they can be learned. Those who have difficult vocations to explore need the tradition to help the exploration. The tradition may not have the final word; but it is certain they will never find the final word if they have failed to profit from the words the tradition offers. And if it should really be the case that they are summoned to witness on some terra incognita of "new" experience, it will be all the more important that their new discernments should have been reached on the basis of a deep appropriation of old ones, searching for and exploiting the analogies they offer. No one who has not learned to be traditional can dare to innovate.

- Oliver O'Donovan, Good News for Gay Christians: Sermons on the Subjects of the Day (7), §7.

Hart on provisional cosmic dualism

      '[T]here are those who suffer from a palpably acute anxiety regarding the honour due the divine sovereignty. Certainly many Christians over the centuries have hastened to resituate the New Testament imagery of spiritual warfare securely within the one all-determining will of God, fearing that to deny that evil and death are the "left hand" of God's goodness in creation or the necessary "shadow" of his righteousness would be to deny divine omnipotence as well.
      Nevertheless, and disturbing as it may be, it is clearly the case that there is a kind of "provisional" cosmic dualism within the New Testament: not an ultimate dualism, of course, between two equal principles; but certainly a conflict between a sphere of created autonomy that strives against God on the one hand and the saving love of God in time on the other.'

- David Bentley Hart, The Doors of the Sea: Where Was God in the Tsunami?
(Eerdmans: 2005), 62-63.

This, once again, raises the question: is evil primarily the instrument or enemy of God? Hart's own answer is unambiguous:

[I]f it is from Christ that we are to learn how God relates himself to sin, suffering, evil and death, it would seem that he provides us little evidence of anything other than a regal, relentless, and miraculous enmity: sin he forgives, suffering he heals, evil he casts out, and death he conquers. And absolutely nowhere does Christ act as if any of these things are part of the eternal work or purposes of God. (86-87)

Around the web

Do you suffer from Bono fatigue? H/T Drew.

Review of the first Mac back in 1984. Amazing how many of the innovations are now standard across the board. H/T CraigS.

An intriguing stunt by the Washington Post: Pearls before breakfast. What would happen if "one of the finest classical musicians in the world, playing some of the most elegant music ever written on one of the most valuable violins ever made" were to try busking in a busy Washington D.C. train station? The article is long, but well written. H/T Benjamin Ady.

Popular evangelical liturgy as recorded by Chrisendom.

How to get from NYC to London. Don't skip step #24. H/T Daniel Kirk.

In praise of... God!

There are many things, great and small, worth praising God for. I was given one more yesterday. For those who have been following the dramas in my life over the last few months, you might be interested to read this.

Indeed, in our hearts we felt the sentence of death. But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead. He has delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us. On him we have set our hope that he will continue to deliver us, as you help us by your prayers. Then many will give thanks on our behalf for the gracious favor granted us in answer to the prayers of many.

- 2 Corinthians 1.9-11

Thanks Naomi for this pasage.Series so far: I; II; III; IV; V; VI; VII; VIII; IX; X.

Dan on making a difference

There was a time when I thought [...] that we could truly contribute and leave a mark on the world. But [...] I have only found that the world has marked me. Instead of bringing wholeness to others, I have found that the brokenness of others has become a part of me. Instead of bringing help, I have received helplessness. Instead of bringing comfort, I have received sorrow. Instead of being a light and a guide, I have found myself plunged into darkness. Instead of being an agent of salvation, I have found myself a member of the damned.

This is the hopelessness that I want my Christian brothers and sisters to be confronted with. Indeed, it is only after we have been confronted with the reality of this hopelessness that we can begin to understand the true nature of Christian hope. This hope speaks of a peasant who died abandoned and hopeless, marked by the world's whips, and thorns, and nails. And this hope continues to lead me into places where the world will, inevitably, mark me.

Dan (On Jounreying with those in Exile): always provocative, insightful, well-read and earnest. Check it out.

Family Values

Which side of US politics supports family values?

Unspun: Top Theology Blogs

Go and vote for your favourite theology blogs over at Unspun.

Hart (again) on suffering and providence

"[Many Christians] clearly seem to wish to believe there is a divine plan in all the seeming randomness of nature's violence that accounts for every instance of suffering, privation, and loss in a sort of total sum. This is an understandable impulse. That there is a transcendent providence that will bring God's good ends out of the darkness of history - in spite of every evil - no Christian can fail to affirm. But providence (as even Voltaire seems to have understood) is not simply a 'total sum' or 'infinite equation' that leaves nothing behind."
...
"Yes, certainly, there is nothing, not even suffering or death, that cannot be providentially turned toward God's good ends. But the New Testament also teaches us that, in another and ultimate sense, suffering and death - considered in themselves - have no true meaning or purpose at all; and this is in a very real sense the most liberating and joyous wisdom that the gospel imparts."

- David Bentley Hart, The Doors of the Sea: Where Was God in the Tsunami?
(Eerdmans: 2005), 29, 35.

Moltmann vs Augustine on loving God

What do I love when I love God?

Augustine writes: ‘But what do I love when I love you? Not the beauty of any body or the rhythm of time in its movement; not the radiance of light, so dear to our eyes; not the sweet melodies in the world of manifold sounds; not the perfume of flowers, ointments and spices; not manna and not honey; not the limbs so delightful to the body’s embrace: it is none of these things that I love when I love my God. And yet when I love my God I do indeed love a light and a sound and a perfume and a food and an embrace – a light and sound and perfume and food and embrace in my inward self. There my soul is flooded with a radiance which no space can contain; there a music sounds which time never bears away; there I smell a perfume which no wind disperses; there I taste a food that no surfeit embitters; there is an embrace which no satiety severs. It is this that I love when I love my God.’ (Confessions X.6.8)

Answer: When I love God I love the beauty of bodies, the rhythm of movements, the shining of eyes, the embraces, the feelings, the scents, the sounds of all this protean creation. When I love you, my God, I want to embrace it all, for I love you with all my sense in the creation of your love. In all the things that encounter me, you are waiting for me.
      For a long time I looked for you within myself, and crept into the shell of my soul, protecting myself with an armour of unapproachability. But you were outside – outside myself – and enticed me out of the narrowness of my heart into the broad place of love for life. So I came out of myself and found my soul in my senses, and my own self in others.
      The experience of God deepens the experiences of life. It does not reduce them, for it awakens the unconditional Yes to life. The more I love God the more gladly I exist. The more immediately and wholly I exist, the more I sense the living God, the inexhaustible well of life, and life’s eternity.

-Jürgen Moltmann, The Spirit of Life: A Universal Affirmation
(trans. Margaret Kohl, Fortress: 2001), 98.

What do you love when you love God? Do you side with Augustine or Moltmann? Why?

And where does Jesus fit in?

Hart on learning from atheists

"[S]ometimes atheism seems to retain elements of 'Christianity' within itself that Christians have all too frequently forgotten."

- David Bentley Hart, The Doors of the Sea: Where Was God in the Tsunami? (Eerdmans: 2005), 25.

Have you noticed this? Can you think of any examples?