The sin that dare not speak its name

Guest post by anonymous
I have asked Byron for permission to remain anonymous since I fear the backlash (personal and official) that may occur if I put my name to this post.

There is a grave sin openly celebrated in our nation (perhaps especially in Sydney) that makes me feel queasy. At certain times of year - and this is one of them - its advocates feel they can come out of the closet and proudly flaunt their unfortunate condition. Criticism is difficult to raise in polite company, especially amongst educated people. To speak out is considered ignorant at best, hate-filled at worst. Yet the Bible is clear and so we must be too. It would be cruel to remain silent.

This perversion is aggressively defended by highly organised and well-funded lobby groups. Some political parties treat it as a normal and desirable pattern of life, and most teach it is necessary to at least tolerate it. I know that every political party has strengths and weaknesses and that no party is perfect, but I still struggle to understand how a Christian can in good conscience vote for any party that openly and brazenly supports a sin so roundly and straightforwardly condemned in the Bible.

Advocates want to teach our children to embrace it and indeed in many schools it is put forward as perfectly natural, even necessary for a well-functioning society. I personally know of parents who have had the courage to question the ideology being taught in our classrooms and who, as a result, have subsequently been slandered and ostracised - or perhaps worse, condescendingly patronised as backwards and ignorant.

From my study of history, I realise that this abomination has been tolerated by the elite of some societies, but I am not aware of any civilisation that has embraced it so wholeheartedly as ours.

It was not so long ago that the church's teaching of such things carried more weight and a man would have been ashamed to admit such desires in public. Parents would have warned their children against it with serious and hushed voices. The tables are now turned and it is those of us who still hold to the conservative position embraced by the church for centuries who are shunned. I was sickened to discover that is possible to buy children's books that celebrate what ought to be anathema.

And worst of all, many churches now overlook members who ought to be disciplined - preferring perhaps to avoid controversy - or even teach inclusion of this most egregious wrong, claiming that the cultural conditions of the biblical authors blinkered their vision, that they had not seen the great good that could result from accepting such desires as part of God's blessing upon humanity.

Don't get me wrong; there is such a thing as natural and healthy desire. But not every desire is healthy. Some are simply corruptions in which we mistake our true needs for manufactured false wants. Whether cursed with corrupt genes or seduced by an iniquitous lifestyle I cannot say, but those ensnared in wickedness are not to be despised. They are to be pitied and helped, not attacked. We must try, as the saying goes, to love the sinner while hating the sin. Let us remember that none of us are without fault. I am sure they make all kinds of positive contributions to society in other ways. And they are not beyond repentance. With the help of God's Spirit, they can begin afresh and discover healing.

What am I talking about? What is the sin that dare not speak its name? I am referring, of course, to the love of money, which is a root of all kinds of evil. Tolerance is cruelty. Repentance is possible. Healing is promised.

Economics and ethics: does everything have a price?

Fox News is not usually considered to be a great source of ethical insight. So when a friend sent me an article titled almost everything we're taught is wrong, I was dubious. The piece argues that child labour, price gouging, ticket scalping, selling kidneys and blackmail are all deemed morally reprehensibly and illegal in many countries, but when we consider them from an economic point of view, we see that each ought to be considered socially beneficial.

Child labour in poorer nations contributes to the economy and keeps children from prostitution. Price gouging during an emergency reduces hoarding and gives an incentive to distant vendors to supply what is missing, even if this means travelling long distances. Ticket scalping provides a service that adds value, namely, allowing those prepared to pay extra to avoid the time they would have spent waiting in a queue. Making the sale of kidneys legal would save lives by increasing the supply. And if blackmail were legal, then there would be more reason for people to behave; in asking for money to not exercise free speech, the blackmailer is engaging in a form of "private law enforcement" by putting a price on not gossiping.

Each of these arguments needs to be addressed on its merits. Child labour: I agree that simply banning it is insufficient, but any ethical analysis worth its salt is not going to be content with mere legislation. The same argument could well be used against the abolition of slavery: what are the slaves going to do once they are freed? It is worth looking more broadly at what forces have created an economic situation in which the alternative to child labour is child prostitution.

Price gouging doesn't mean prices rising when there is shortage, but dramatic and extortionate price rises during a crisis. Should prices rise in an emergency? Yes, but not too much for essentials, since access to the means to stay alive ought not be contingent upon wealth. Far better for essentials to be rationed.

The argument for ticket scalpers I actually have some degree of sympathy for, though where ticket sales are online, then there is no waiting in line.

The sale of bodily tissues is problematic for multiple reasons. First, it commodifies one of the sites that ought to be most resistant to the logic of the market, one's own body. Second, if people are able to sell irreplaceable bodily organs, then why not their freedom? Thus there is a economic justification for slavery here. Third, if there is a legal price for kidneys, then the price is going to be high and this is almost inevitably going to mean that a black market will develop, incentivising criminal and coercive surgery. The antipathy to the sale of human tissue actually arises partly from Edinburgh history, where in the eighteenth century there was a black market in fresh cadavers for the famous medical school, and it lead to a very famous case of serial murder, which, incidentally, occurred just a few metres from where I sleep.

Blackmail has the same problem; making it legal would incentivise further and worse criminal behaviour. We only need to look at what happened to News of the World (and probably other UK tabloids) when gossip became commodified to see the dangers of encouraging breaches of privacy for profit.

The fundamental failure of the article appears in its opening lines. Economics is not a substitute for ethics. Any society that treats them as commensurate is inviting the thoroughgoing colonisation of all human relationships by market forces and the logic of commercial transactions. Christians of all people have the most reason to be suspicious of this, since we are taught that the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil (1 Timothy 6.10) and that our lives are ransomed not with silver or gold, but the precious blood of Christ (1 Peter 1.18). Not everything can be translated into a single numerical language.

Waking up from our illusions

"How much of this is real? How much of the economic growth of the past 60 years? Of the wealth and comfort, the salaries and pensions that older people accept as normal, even necessary? How much of it is an illusion, created by levels of borrowing – financial and ecological – that cannot be sustained? [...] To sustain the illusion, we have inflicted more damage since 1950 to the planet's living systems than we achieved in the preceding 100,000 years."

- George Monbiot, Out of the Ashes.

Monbiot again is making the case that the church ought to have been making all along (and in some cases, is making). Material prosperity is not the route to the good life; the more stuff we accumulate, the more anxiety crowds out our joy, the more social bonds are weakened, the more the living spaces of the planet are degraded. Of course, a certain basic level of material well-being is required, the scriptures acknowledge as much - "if we have food and clothing, we will be content" (1 Timothy 6.8) - but our society has long surpassed the foolishness of the rich farmer Jesus warned about in Luke 12.13-21. We are missing the plot, messing about with the shallows of life while the depths remain unplumbed. Personally, we could be plunging into more through having less stuff to worry about, and collectively we could be pursuing things that are better than growth.

Go and read Monbiot. Then listen to Jesus tell us how to be truly alive:

He said to his disciples, "Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat, or about your body, what you will wear. For life is more than food, and the body more than clothing. Consider the ravens: they neither sow nor reap, they have neither storehouse nor barn, and yet God feeds them. Of how much more value are you than the birds! And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life? If then you are not able to do so small a thing as that, why do you worry about the rest? Consider the lilies, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, how much more will he clothe you—you of little faith! And do not keep striving for what you are to eat and what you are to drink, and do not keep worrying. For it is the nations of the world that strive after all these things, and your Father knows that you need them. Instead, strive for his kingdom, and these things will be given to you as well. Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom. Sell your possessions, and give alms. Make purses for yourselves that do not wear out, an unfailing treasure in heaven, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also."

- Luke 12.22-34 (NRSV).

Why I'm not going to heaven

Heaven's above!
Yuri Gagarin, the first human to orbit the earth, is reputed to have said upon his return, "I looked and looked but I didn’t see God". God is not in heaven; we have now been there.

This anecdote may make us smile. Heaven is indeed well-known as the dwelling-place of God, yet when Christians pray to "our Father in heaven" we do not mean that God is literally to be glimpsed by cosmonauts up above the ionosphere in the heavens. The Scriptures do frequently speak of "the heavens" in this literal sense of what you see when you look up on a clear night. But the term gains extra layers of meaning as we follow the biblical story from the creation of the heavens and the earth in Genesis 1-2 through to the marriage of heaven and earth in Revelation 21-22. Heaven comes to mean a reality far deeper, richer and more overarching than merely the sky.

For many Christians, "heaven" has come to serve as a shorthand for everything we hope for, for the ultimate goal of our salvation, for the blissful land of rest at the end of our journey. We populate this realm with images from cartoons and movies, in which white robed figures with haloes play harps on clouds, or perhaps play rugby against the angels. Even where the content is left more vague, much Christian piety assumes that going to heaven when we die is the content of Christian hope. This theme is found in many of our songs, mentioned at many funerals, serves as a focal point in evangelism, and is frequently discussed in wistful or anguished conversations late at night.

Heaven: the origin, not the goal, of our salvation
However, a closer reading of the biblical narrative would suggest that such conceptions are significantly wide of the mark. The good news of Jesus certainly does hold out a stunning hope in the face of death and for a dying world. But it is not that we will go to heaven. It is that heaven will come to us. It is not that we will pass into a higher realm at death, but that, one day, God will transform this world so that his will is done on earth as it is in heaven. It is not that there is life after death for an immortal soul, but that at some point after our death, God will raise us bodily as he did for Jesus. Although there are a few passing references to the fact that those who have died in Christ are not lost, but are now with him, this is never held out as the primary content of our hope.

This is worth pausing over. We are indeed "citizens of heaven", but this doesn’t mean we hope to end up there. Instead, it is from heaven that we await a Saviour who will raise us to have glorious bodies like his (Philippians 3.20-21). Our inheritance is indeed in heaven, but that is because Jesus is our hope, and he is hidden until the day our living (i.e. resurrection) hope is realised (1 Peter 1.3; see also Colossians 1.5). We seek to enter “the kingdom of heaven”, but this is Matthew’s way of speaking of what is elsewhere called "the kingdom of God"; "heaven" here is simply a reverent way of referring to God without directly mentioning him (see also Luke 15:18). We could go on and on, but nowhere does the New Testament teach that going to heaven when we die is the focus of Christian hope.

The truly Christian hope, based on the experience of Jesus, is for resurrection, not merely an otherworldly existence after death. Resurrection is a powerful act of God to vindicate and transform our lowly bodies to be like Jesus’ glorious body, for us to be raised as he was raised, not simply back from the dead into mortal bodies to die again, but raised in glory and freedom.

"Your will be done on earth"
And it doesn’t end with our bodies. Our hope is for God to say "yes and amen" to the creation that he declared good, very good. It is for the earth to be filled with the glory of God as the waters cover the sea, for death to be swallowed up in victorious new life, for God’s will to be done on earth as it is in heaven. In short, our hope is not to escape this place and these bodies and go elsewhere, it is for God to heal and bring new life to his broken creation, conquering death and decay forever.

Thus, Christian hope is not for redemption from the world, but for the redemption of the world. Jesus’ resurrection therefore has implications not just our bodies, but also for the entire created order of which they are a part. In Romans 8 Paul pictures the created order as a woman giving birth, waiting and straining for a future joy, despite pain and distress at the moment. Switching metaphors, he says that creation is like a prisoner, in bondage to decay. So while everything currently falls apart, God has something surprising planned: a gaol-break! And creation is yearning, groaning for that day. And so, says Paul, are all those who have gotten their first taste of God’s future in the Holy Spirit. We too groan and yearn for that day when our bodies will be redeemed, that is, raised into glorious freedom.

Matter matters
That heaven is not the end of the world has all kinds of implications. Here, briefly, are four.

God has not abandoned his good creation.
The God who has the power to call things which are not into existence is the same God who raises the dead (Romans 4.17). Therefore, redemption is not fundamentally opposed to creation and the created order, but vindicates it. And that means that the church is not the opposite of the world, but an imperfect foretaste of the world’s true future.

God says "yes" to life.
His "no" of judgement is only to be understood within an overarching "yes" to Christ, to humanity, to his world, to life. He opposes that which opposes the flourishing of his creation. God is unashamedly positive about all that is good in the world: he says "yes" to love, to laughter, to sharing, to sex, to food, to fun, to music, to matter. It is because he loves the world that he will not put up with its present disfigurements.

Humanity as humanity matters.
Jesus was raised, and remains, a human (1 Timothy 2.5). We await resurrection as humans. Nothing that is truly human will ultimately perish (though all must be transformed). This makes human endeavour and relationships noble, even while they remain tragically flawed. Christians remain humans, with much still in common with our neighbours. Secular work in God’s good world is not to be despised or treated merely instrumentally. Neither is art, or education, or healthcare, or agriculture, or science. There is much about these activities that will not endure, and much that requires reform; yet these tasks all participate as part of what it is to be a human creature.

What we do with our bodies and the planet matters.
Not because we can create the kingdom of God or sculpt our resurrection bodies now, but because God cares for them. Bodies and the broader environment in which they find their place are good gifts, worth caring for. Just as our obedience will never be complete in this age, yet we keep thanking, trusting and loving God, so our care for creation is presently an imperfectible, yet unavoidable, responsibility and privilege. We must therefore also reject any dualism that opposes ‘spiritual’ to 'physical' concerns. To be truly spiritual is to be enlivened, empowered, cleansed and directed by the Holy Spirit of life, who is the midwife our birth (Job 33:4) and our rebirth (Titus 3.5), and the midwife of the world’s birth (Genesis 1.2) and rebirth (Romans 8.22-23). To be a friend of God is to be a friend of creation, of humanity, of life - the kind of friend that hates what is evil, clings to what is good, that is not overcome by evil, but overcomes evil with good (Romans 12.9, 21).
This article was originally published in Salt magazine with the title "Heaven: It's not the end of the world" in Autumn 2009 and then online by WebSalt. Long time readers (or those who browse the sidebar) may recognise that it is a condensed version of my sixteen part series on heaven from the early days of this blog in 2006. I thought I would repost it here (with permission from the Salt editor) in order to provide a more accessible and convenient form of the argument in a single post. Those looking for a little more detail are referred to the full series.

Praying for kings and rulers: civic order and the good news of Jesus

A guest post by Ruth Brigden
Ruth is a missionary working with CMS Australia and serving in Numbulwar, a remote indigenous community in the Northern Territory.

“I urge, then, first of all, that requests, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for everyone – for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness.”

- 1 Timothy 2:1-2.

This is Kathy-Anne. She is our church treasurer.
Kathy-Anne is also an elected Councillor on the Roper Gulf Shire, which oversees service provision in Numbulwar.

I was challenged by Kathy-Anne recently when she told me that she prays everyday for Numbulwar’s police, school, credit union, and her employer, the Roper Gulf Shire.

Numbulwar’s police station is only a few years old. Before it was built, intervention into domestic disputes, and fights between tribal groups was done by individuals (including Yulki, our church deacon), and they often got hurt in the process. In the event of an emergency, the nearest police came by plane from Groote Eylandt, and by the time they got here, the damage was usually done. A permanent police presence has helped Numbulwar community live more peacefully, and it has helped people like Yulki devote more time to the Ministry of the Word, rather than spending her time breaking up fights.

When Kathy-Anne prays for the police and other local institutions, she is putting 1 Timothy 2:1-2 into practice. I’m sure we can think of many good reasons why well-functioning institutions that promote public order are desirable. But it seems that from a spiritual point of view, this kind of stability is good for Christians who want to proclaim the gospel of peace.

It is in the interests of Christians to pray for “kings” and “all those in authority”, because if under God those in authority govern well, Christians will be freed-up to live out their faith before outsiders, “in all godliness and holiness”.

Living in a small community helps Kathy-Anne to see how integral institutions that maintain the good order of society really are – she has got it right in praying regularly for those in authority in Numbulwar, and she has challenged me by her example to pray more in line with 1 Timothy 2:1-2.

Which is "the best" English Bible translation?

A guest post by Donna
Donna is a Bible translator working in South Asia
Have you ever heard someone talking about a particular English Bible translation and saying it's the best? I've heard that said about the ESV, the NIV, the NRSV, the NLT and The Message. Can they all be the best?

I was sitting in a Translation Priciples lecture recently and started to think about the different English translations and what their relative strengths are. Before I get there, let me outline the three different kinds of translation.

1. Some translations are literal or "word for word" translations. This means that they try to translate each word as closely as possible to the word that was used in the original Greek (or Hebrew/Aramaic in the Old Testatment). The ESV is a good example of this. This means that you will be able to see the language structure and word choice of the original language more clealy (though you are still reading it all in English).

2. Some translations are "meaning based" translations, which means that they first take a whole idea (might be a sentence or a clause) in the original language and translate the meaning of that idea into English. So the sentence structure will be more different to the original language than in a more literal translation, but it will also use more natural English. The NLT is a good representative of this approach, which is also sometimes called "dynamic equivalence".

3. Some translations are "paraphrases". These go further than the "meaning based translations" and apply the point of what was said in the original to today's situation and might even change what is being talked about to make the same point. The Message is usually placed in this category. Some people say that The Message, though it might be very helpful, is not a translation at all because it changes the meaning too much.

The risk with using a too literal translation is that the language might be too unnatual English to be understood properly (I have heard some people say that the ESV is too difficult for their children, even teenage children, to understand). The risk with a meaning based translation, and especially a paraphrase, is that you may not have understood the meaning correctly, and therefore what you translate might be wrong.

In summary literal translations run the risk of being unintelligible, other types of translations run the risk of being wrong!

These are not three discrete categories, they're a continuum, so the NIV and NRSV are placed somewhere in between the literal and meaning based translations.

To repesent the strengths and weaknesses of each approach, I came up with this little table:
Before explaining my table I should say that I'm talking about good translations here. There can also be very bad, literal and meaning based translations and bad paraphrases, but I'm not including those in my analysis.

Ideational Meaning is what people usually mean when they say "meaning". When we say "John walked out the door" the ideational meaning refers to this person called John and that he moved, putting his feet in front of one another to go out the door.

I think that meaning based translations do ideational meaning best. Literal translations don't convey the ideational meaning quite as well, because the meaning can be obscured when it uses foreign idioms or phrases. Paraphrases don't attempt to accurately convey the ideational meaning.

Textual meaning refers to how what is read relates to the rest of the text. For example in Mark chapter 2 Jesus refers to himself as "the son of man". The ideational meaning of this phrase is "I", people used this phrase to refer to themselves often. But on a textual level we can see that Jesus might have used this phrase to remind people of something else - in this case maybe the passage from Daniel 7.

Since they use a "word for word" translation strategy, links between texts can be most easily seen in literal translations. (From the introduction: "The ESV is an "essentially literal" translation that seeks as far as possible to capture the precise wording of the original text and the personal style of each Bible writer.") This is not always as clear in meaning based translations - though footnotes can help - and it is not clear at all in paraphrases.

Affectual meaning relates to how reading the passage affects readers' emotions [ed. how it effects affects]. How are we to feel when, for example, Jesus is betrayed, or when he dies, or when he is transfigured, or when he feeds the five thousand? The original readers might have felt a certain way about something, but because we are so far removed from their culture we might miss some things and not be affected the same way.

Affectual meaning is best conveyed by paraphrases (as long as you belong to their target audience, if not the meaning can be lost on you, or misunderstood). Their aim is to affect the emotions of the readers and motivate the reader. In paraphrases there is no question of the original language affecting the grammar structure used, thus they are best at conveying affectual meaning, meaning based translations are next, and literal translations come in last in terms of affectual meaning because the English used is the least natural, and therefore affects our emotions the least.

In summary, meaning based translations (like the NLT) convey the ideational meaning the best. Literal, or word for word translations (like ESV) convey the textual meaning the best. And paraphrases (like The Message) convey the affectual meaning the best.

So when people say that the ESV is the best translation I would say:

• Yes it is! If you're studying the original text and want help understanding the Greek, or if you want to know what the original language says, but can't study the original language.
• But no it's not! If you want to read the bible in natural English, nor if you want your heart, as well as your head, to easily understand what you're reading.

If people say that the NLT is the best translation I would say:

• Yes! Because it is written in very nice English, which speaks to my heart well, and it also clearly shows the meaning. I especially like reading the Old Testament prophets in the NLT because I find I need it written in natural English to really understand what's happening since their situation and culture and also the genre is very removed from what I'm used to.
• And No! Because it isn't so easy to see how one passage relates to others, and also some of the ambiguities in the original language are lost. For example 1 Timothy 2:15 where the NLT has "women" the Greek word would be more accurately translated "he" or "she".

If people say that The Message is the best translation I would say:

• Yes! Because it speaks to my heart well and applies the message to my own culture, which gives me encouragement very directly, and means that I am affected strongly by each encouragement and each rebuke.
• But also No! In some ways The Message changes the meaning a little too much, and I'm never quite sure when biblical author's writings end and the interpretation of the translator begins. The Message is really more like good preaching. It is powerful and it hits home. But the message of The Message must also be tested against a translation which sticks more closely to the original text.

Want to share any thoughts about this with me? What did you think of my graph? Which translation do you like best and why?

As a post scipt I should also say that not all these positives and negatives have the same weight for me, and so there is a translation that I prefer above the others. Other people will have different priorities and different background and will therefore will prefer a different translation to me.

I acknowledge Kirk Patston who first told me about the three types of meaning though under different names in a very interesting Old Testament lecture. The idea has been adapted from the linguist Michael Halliday.
Eight points for giving the correct chapter reference for the first image, twelve for giving the proper name of the volume in which it is found and fifteen for the location (country and city) in which it can be found.

The love of money is a root of all kinds of evil

After my recent post, have a look at this article on greed.

O'Donovan on wakefulness I: Waking

Waking
Last night I went to hear Oliver O'Donovan give the first of three lectures on Morally Awake? Admiration and resolution in the light of Christian faith.

This first lecture was entitled Waking and he took as his starting point the eighteenth century Scottish philosopher David Hume's famous paragraph questioning the route from 'is' to 'ought': how do we engage in successful moral reasoning such that our descriptions of the world (what 'is')and ourselves lead us to practical outcomes (what we 'ought' to do)?

In every system of morality, which I have hitherto met with, I have always remarked, that the author proceeds for some time in the ordinary ways of reasoning, and establishes the being of a God, or makes observations concerning human affairs; when all of a sudden I am surprized to find, that instead of the usual copulations of propositions, is, and is not, I meet with no proposition that is not connected with an ought, or an ought not. This change is imperceptible; but is however, of the last consequence. For as this ought, or ought not, expresses some new relation or affirmation, 'tis necessary that it should be observed and explained; and at the same time that a reason should be given; for what seems altogether inconceivable, how this new relation can be a deduction from others, which are entirely different from it.

- David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature, book III, part I, section I.

This, he argued, was not an attempt to articulate what later became known as the fact/value distinction (between bare public facts and private selections of values), but was the first attempt to discuss the difference between the good and the right. What is good is something real about the world that we appreciate or admire; what is right is what we do as a result. We admire the good and resolve to do the right (hence the subtitle of the series; lecture 2 will be on Admiring and lecture 3 on Resolving).

Yet in order to trace a path from the good to the right, it is necessary to employ various metaphors or images: construction, insight, weighing up, making choices (O'Donovan, in keeping with his consistent anti-voluntarist agenda, was very critical of this last option). Although we may usually and casually switch images as suits the moment, at points, the metaphor we use is crucial. O'Donovan suggested that a key scriptural metaphor in this regard is wakefulness. Although in the Old Testament, the image is often used of God waking up and taking action, in the New, it is assumed that God is awake, he has acted. And so Jesus and the apostles frequently encourage believers to watch out or be alert (e.g. Matthew 24:42-43; Mark 13:37; 14:37-38; Luke 12:15, 38; 17:3; 21:36; Acts 20:28; Galatians 6:1; Philippians 3:1-3; 1 Timothy 4:16; 2 John 1:8). Although in Ephesians 5.14 waking is used of conversion, usually the image speaks of staying awake. We can't presume to be awake; we must be attentive to staying attentive.

And this attention is oriented in three directions: the world, the self and time.

First, we must be awake to the world, to the contextual framework that surrounds our existence, which precedes (and presumably postdates) our existence. It is possible to drift through the world inattentively, thinking it is a screen for my projections, and so fail to notice, or notice in only a fragmentary and fleeting manner. How we describe objects in our experience is itself part of moral deliberation: is a foetus a human being or a collection of tissue? To attend to the world responsibly means to avoid imposing our desires, assuming that how we want things to be is actually the way they are. This attention is not easy or straightforward. But failure to attend to how things are, to 'mistake' one thing for another (I thought you were an economic unit; little did I know that you were a human being with dignity and worth) is not innocent. Such inattention is culpable, and according to Augustine, is the basic human sin (the basic angelic sin is pride). Thus, the line between moral and theoretical reason does not lie between prescriptive versus descriptive language. To describe is already a moral act.

Second, we must be awake to ourselves. Although experimental disciplines practice a form of self-abnegation, this only makes sense within a larger self-awareness, a desire to avoid having myself as observer interfere with the object under observation. Attention is active, we need to look. And so to be aware of oneself as attentive is to be aware of oneself as active, as a force in the world, to find oneself as an agent in the world with distinct, albeit limited, responsibility. The failure to attend to ourselves as actors is the sin of sloth, the temptation to withdraw from the agentive self. This may arise from despair, or simply from a carelessness in which we sense ourselves as the suffer of the impositions of others: "Look what you made me do!"

Third, we must be aware of time, as well as the world and the self. I act now. I can reflect on the past and I can imagine the future, but I can only deliberate on the present. Of course memory and foresight are morally significant, but only as they impinge on the present. Moral thinking does not mean making predictions about the future; the moralist has no business with crystal balls. Even the Son doesn't know the day or the hour of that absolute future when the kingdom will come in fullness.

These three orientations help diagnose typical failures in moral deliberation. Attention to the world without attention to the self leads to the observational mode, in which ethics is replaced with social science. Attention to my own powers of agency without attention to the world leads to the technological imperative in which the ends serve the means. Attention to the self and to the world without attention to time leads to idealism, missing the good deeds for this time and place.

This trifold structure can also be related to a more familiar one. Love renews our consciousness of the world; faith renews our knowledge of the self; hope renews our awareness of time and possibility.

In question time O'Donovan was asked about the relationship between wakefulness and the past, prayer, conversion, decision-making, secular moral reasoning and sin. Perhaps the most interesting discussion was about decision-making. Often we understand moral deliberation as if we have an apple in one hand and a pear in the other and it's a toss up as to which we might bite into. Not so. According to O'Donovan, moral deliberation is a process of refining and clarifying in which we realise we have no other choice. The 'decision' is simply to recognise the outstanding candidate, not tossing a coin between two equal options.

The lectures will be are generously available for download in a few weeks now from the New College website.
Eight points for guessing the European city in the pic.
Series: I; IIa; IIb; IIIa; IIIb.

The End of Suburbia IV

Peak Oil: denial (continued)
Way back in November, I was writing on Peak Oil (and here). You might think that my recent condition has distracted me from this issue. In one sense, yes, it has. But as I reflect upon it, I think there are many similarities between having cancer and facing the possibility of Peak Oil. In both cases, there is a limited resource (Oil, time) in which there is uncertainty over just how much might be left, the dead end possibilities of denial, blind optimistic 'faith' (which is really no faith at all), getting distracted from the main game, or despair.

Blind faith
In my previous post, I argued that blind faith in the market or God's protection were inadequate responses. Instead, Christians are liberated from fear and so can face the truth, whatever it might be found to be. The truth is not easy to find on this question. Competing experts telling us different things. Of course, it is possible that even the appearance of dispute can help one side or the other. Yet what to do in this case?

A distraction?
Some Christians might consider such things a distraction, from the real issue of preaching the gospel. In one sense, yes, it is quite possible for secondary concerns to make the church forget its raison d'etre: witnessing to Christ crucified, celebrating his resurrection and awaiting his return. However, it is not the case that 'secondary' concerns mightn't themselves become a cause of unfaithfulness when ignored: much of the church in Nazi Germany considered Hitler's Aryan clause to be a distracting non-gospel issue.

Despair
For those who start doing a little research and find the stats convincing, a fourth common response is despair. The future seems bleak and hopeless. Globalised civilisation, addicted to cheap oil, mightn't survive in anything like its present form, and what is left may be so unrecognisable that those who survive (which may only be a small percentage of the world's present population on some estimates) find themselves in a post-apocalyptic landscape desperately scrabbling for bare necessities in a post-industrial neo-tribalism. Even if such a worst-case scenario doesn't play out, there are enough variations holding out the prospect of major social upheaval and suffering to make any imaginative observer pause and consider other civilisations whose short-sighted greed ended in their own destruction.

Scarcity is not the problem
However, for the Christian, despair is not an option. Because despite appearances, scarcity is not the problem. Our first parents, faced with a whole garden of goodies, nonetheless came to believe that God had shortchanged them by denying them the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (Gen 2-3). However this image is to be interpreted, the sting in the serpent's questions was the nagging fear that God was not generous, was not good, had not provided enough.

A theological 'solution'?
But of course, we, like them, live in a world with ample resources to provide for our needs. The problem is that we have artificially inflated our needs to include cheap transport, easy energy, comfort and inordinate and ever-expanding wealth. And so the primary theological 'solution' to Peak Oil is thankfulness, which is the key to contentment. Listen to the Apostle Paul: I have learned to be content with whatever I have. I know what it is to have little, and I know what it is to have plenty. In any and all circumstances I have learned the secret of being well-fed and of going hungry, of having plenty and of being in need. I can do all things through him who strengthens me. (Philippians 4.11b-13) And again: Of course, there is great gain in godliness combined with contentment; for we brought nothing into the world, so that we can take nothing out of it; but if we have food and clothing, we will be content with these. But those who want to be rich fall into temptation and are trapped by many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. (1 Timothy 6.6-9)

There is much more to say about Peak Oil than this, but here is where I suspect a theological response ought to begin: with thanks for our creator God's abundant provision of a good world and an admission that our needs are more readily met than we often suspect. The problem is our selfishness, greed and shortsighted focus on ourselves to the detriment of the larger body - whether of the church, of humanity, or of the entire created order.
Series so far: I; II; III; IV.
Ten points for the town in which these ubiquitous little bikes dominate the streets.

In praise of... praise

A new series

O Lord, open my lips,
      and my mouth will declare your praise.      - Psalm 51.15

I used to think that praise, like love, was a zero sum game. I thought that in order to make sure God got the highest praise, I had to refrain from speaking too highly of anything else. Superlatives were therefore reserved for divine things. Saying too much about what was good was a threat to what was best.

But this needn't be the case. Everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected, provided it is received with thanksgiving (1 Timothy 4.4). Whatever brings joy and life, whatever multiples love and fosters hope, whatever truly exists, is a gift from God for us. Gifts that were intended to evoke our thanksgiving (1 Timothy 4.3). When we praise a good thing, this needn't threaten God's glory, because if we are acknowledging a gift, then praise reflects positively on the giver. By praising the goodness of the gift, we praise the generosity of the giver.

Of course, since our first parents arrogantly asserted their independence from God, the world is now also cracked and good things that usurp their specific place and function become a threat to one another, like a cancerous growth in the body of the world. Nonetheless, the fundamental affirming of "good, very good" still applies, even when more must also be said.

I come from a Christian culture that can be very highly critical, and where initial appreciation of some limited goodness can all-too-often be merely a prelude to tearing something apart. We love to critique, to feel good about ourselves by pointing at flaws in others. I don't like this culture, nor the fact that I enjoy complaining as much as the next person. But perhaps even this negative reaction is itself an example of the culture. Instead, I want to learn to be a praiser - to see and love the good. To hate what is evil, hold fast to what is good (Romans 12.9).

So let us praise what is good.
Ten points for guessing why I selected this picture. There may be multiple reasons.
Series so far: I; II; III; IV; V; VI; VII; VIII; IX; X. Full series links can be found here.