Was Jesus a looker?

"An attractive Christ, or a Jesus who is a better-looking version of us, effectively endorses the existence so desperately sought after in the West, where looking good is an indispensable part of the 'good life'. Submitting Jesus to the values of our culture - that patently worships the new, the attractive, the young, the white, over the wizened, the ugly, the infirm, the non-white - is much safer than heeding his often blistering critique of power and our failure to love God and each other as we should."

- Justine Toh, "God must be beautiful - it runs in the family", SMH 25th April 2011.

Justine Toh has a good SMH article reflecting on portrayals of Jesus and our tendency to equate beauty with worth.

Is God to blame for floods?

Many readers will be aware of the recent serious floods in much of Queensland, which have claimed dozens of lives, devastated tens of thousands of homes and caused billions of dollars worth of damage to crops, buildings and infrastructure across an area the size of Germany and France combined. Victoria is currently experiencing its worst flooding on record, which is causing more damage than the 2009 Black Saturday bushfires. Disastrous flooding has also struck Brazil, the Philippines, South Africa and Sri Lanka. In each case, scores or hundreds have been killed, tens or hundreds of thousands have been displaced and millions or billions of dollars worth of damage have been sustained. And of course, there are still millions of displaced Pakistanis after flood waters covered more than one fifth of the country in July and are yet to fully recede.*
*The relative level of news coverage concerning these various events is itself a phenomenon worthy of a little reflection.

The suffering from these events lasts much longer than the headlines and the victims in each case can be supported through reputable charities and aid organisations (for example here).

Yet amidst seeking to provide practical help to these situations, such ruinous events open a range of questions for Christians. How are we to understand such events? Are these floods acts of God? Punishments of some kind? Senseless and random natural disasters? After-effects of the fall? Premonitions of some impending apocalypse?

This discussion will focus on the flooding in Queensland, especially Brisbane, which is where I've read the most analysis, yet I suspect that similar stories could be told about most or all of the other locations.

The causation of floods is a complex matter. Obviously, rainfall patterns are important. Many locations in the affected area of Queensland received record-breaking falls. Indeed, these floods come after the wettest year on record globally and in Queensland, and the third wettest on record for Australia as a whole. It was also equal hottest globally, which is relevant because warmer air holds more moister, and warmer oceans evaporate faster. Indeed, surface water temperatures off the Queensland coast are also the warmest on record. This is all directly related to one of the strongest La Niña patterns on record, but it is also consistent with predicted shifts in the climate system. Attributing extreme weather to climate change is complex, and it is simplistic to say "see, here is climate change", but it is also fair to say that no weather is simply "natural" anymore (more discussion here and here and here).

Yet rainfall alone doesn't determine water volume or speed. Land use changes play a big role in shaping how much run-off contributes to rising rivers - and how quickly. Deforestation generally makes floods worse by removing natural barriers that soak up some moisture and slow down the rest. Urbanisation takes this a step further by replacing absorbent soil with largely impermeable concrete. Although Australia is sparsely populated, the area around Brisbane is the main population centre in Queensland and has seen the most significant land use changes.

Previous erosion (itself linked to deforestation and land use management) has also changed the nature of the river bed through sedimentation. Thus, in significant respects, the Brisbane River is not the same river as in previous floods. This process is ongoing. A number of commentators noted that the images of the floods were striking not only for the destructive power of the torrents, but for the bright red hue of the flow - carrying off yet more valuable and scarce topsoil, Australia's future food.

Human activity has shaped watercourses in more direct and intentional ways too, of course. Dams, such as the massive Wivenhoe, built after the "Big Wet" of the 1974 floods, are intended to reduce the occurrence of minor floods, but as we have seen, can't be guaranteed to prevent the largest ones.

Not just the construction of dams, but their operation is also a factor. The extent to which Wivenhoe could have been managed better to minimise flooding is still disputed and is the subject of commission of inquiry called by Premier Bligh.

Perhaps an even more significant human factor concerns town planning and the location of buildings relative to floodplains. If I build a sandcastle below the high-tide mark, do I experience a natural disaster twice a day when the tide comes in? If I build a house in the bed of an seasonal stream, do I suffer from an act of God each year when my house is inundated? And what if I situate my business on a flood plain? It it worth noting that Brisbane Council has been trying to buy back the most vulnerable land for the last five years but prior to the floods had met with little enthusiasm from owners. I'm sure many are now kicking themselves for this now. To add insult to injury, the resale value of the flooded properties is likely to take a hit, and some may become basically uninsurable, as some Britons have found after the floods of recent years here.

Given the wide variety of ways that human decisions and behaviours have influenced the conditions of possibility for these floods, it seems strange to consider them merely natural disasters. Indeed, there is a sense in which no disasters are purely natural. This is especially true of weather-related disasters in a world where human hands are on the global thermostat.

But can they be considered acts of God? Human agency doesn't necessarily compete with divine agency. That is, human actions are affirmed at times in holy scripture also to be acts of God. So the fact that human decisions contributed to a given disaster doesn't mean God was absent. Yet at the same time, I don't think that divine sovereignty - the good news that God is king - requires or enables us to ascribe all events to the hand and plan of God either. God is not "the secret architect of evil".

Nonetheless, God often (though not always) lets us experience the consequences of our actions. There is no divine promise of universal protection from all harm.

Floods (and most other "natural" disasters) are complex phenomena involving the interactions of a wide variety of human factors with patterns in other aspects of the created order. As with much of the messiness of history, their theological significance is not able to be simply read off from the events. Simplistic attempts to ascribe blame upon God, nature or particular humans represents a short-circuiting of the invitation to deeper observation, reflection and planning that such phenomena represent.

This is particularly true in our current age of growing understanding of the hydrological cycle. Oversimplified accounts that simply shrug the shoulders and notches such disasters up as "one of those things" distract people from the fact that threats like this are not random or unpredictable. Flooding in Queensland is far from unprecedented. Warnings of more intense precipitation events have long been predicted by climatologists. The Australia Bureau of Meteorology had warned some months ago of this La Niña being particularly strong. Brisbane Council had been warning low-lying residents of flood danger for years.

The evaluation of future threats is neither tea-leaf reading nor an exact science. But wisdom does not fear or dismiss our best attempts to understand causes and fashion responses to such dangers that are commensurate with the scale and likelihood of the threat. Theological reflections offer us no reason to leave our head in the sand, though plenty of reasons to not build our houses upon it.
PS Amidst all the human suffering and loss, spare a thought too for the damage that the floods are likely to cause to the already stressed and threatened Great Barrier Reef.

McCormack lectures on the death of Christ

As I mentioned back here, Princeton theologian Bruce McCormack is currently at New College giving a series of lectures titled, "Abandoned by God: The Death of Christ in Systematic, Historical, and Exegetical Perspective". Brad Littlejohn has started a detailed and excellent summary of the lectures on his blog. I hope he continues.

God's press conference

Mockery often reveals more than it expects to. Do any Christians recognise some of our own theology in this? Do we recognise how any impressions held by our neighbours? It is a caricature, but unless we have significantly better responses to these questions, then it's frequently how Christians are heard.

My own take on the problem of evil is outlined in "Is it wicked to solve the problem of evil?".

How to be rich

"For you know the generous act of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that by his poverty you might become rich."

- 2 Corinthians 8.9.

We are rich, wealthy beyond measure, because of the gift of Christ. Born amongst beasts, dying amongst thieves, he came into our poverty to bless us with grace upon grace. We are recipients of life we did not earn, forgiveness we did not deserve, a Spirit who blows where he will, all from a God we cannot control. We share a living planet we did not create, a family we did not choose, a history we did not fashion and a future we cannot determine. We are gifted with divine promises to trust, neighbours to bless and possibilities to imagine and implement. All these treasures and more are ours. We are wealthy beyond measure.

Our riches cannot be placed in a bank, fluctuate with the stock market or depreciate with excessive use. They are multiplied by sharing, accrue interest when given freely away.

One man who seemed to grasp something of this was philanthropist Andrew Carnegie when he said, "To die rich is to die disgraced." Our wealth lies not in what we hoard, not in what we earn, but in what we receive without deserving and what we joyfully share or give away. So pour out your life for others, for it is rich and full and overflowing. Pour it out because the Spirit of Christ has filled you and cannot be dammed. Pour it out because then you walk in the footsteps of Christ and share his blessings. Pour it out and become a child of God who receives every good gift from above.

Merry Christmas!

Surrendering to God?

"For freedom Christ has set us free. Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery."

- Galatians 5.1.

Over the last couple of years, I have increasingly been struck by the frequency with which certain kinds of Christian discourse (not least many contemporary worship songs) refer to the idea of our "surrendering" to God. The more I have noticed this, the more it has started to ring false in my ears.

To surrender is to cease resistance and to submit to a hostile power generally after losing all prospect of victory. It is done in order to survive, or to bring to an end a hopeless conflict and so to salvage what remains (especially one's life) from further destruction. But the victory of God is not over us, in order that we might become slaves, giving up our freedom in exchange for survival. If we are going to use metaphors of warfare, conflict and victory, then it is important to note that the New Testament speaks in this way of God's triumph over the powers of evil, sin and death in Christ. God does not beat us into submission, he defeats the powers that hold us captive, liberating us to experience an increase in our agency. We are set free to love. This what Paul means when he speaks of being set free from slavery to sin and becoming a "slave" to righteousness (Romans 6.18). "Slavery" to righteousness is not a straightforward parallel to slavery to sin (as Paul acknowledges in the very next verse: Romans 6.19). The switch of masters is from a dominating tyrant to a loving Father who wants us to grow up into maturity.

What is the problem with getting this metaphor confused? Why is it an issue to speak of our surrendering to God? First, because it implies that becoming a Christian is a process of moving from greater to lesser freedom. Prior to surrendering, I was free, but I gave that up in order to prevent a greater power from destroying me utterly. This is to get things upside down. Being rescued from the power of darkness and being brought into the kingdom of the Son is to be brought out into a wide space, not placed into a cell. It is to regain the power of action, that is, the possibility of acting in faith, hope and love as an expression of true humanity, to be freed from the constrictions of selfishness and fear, guilt and impotence. In other words, ethics is good news.

Second, to think of Christian discipleship as unthinking submission ("surrender") to an externally imposed (or even willingly received) divine will is to misconstrue the nature of Christian maturity. We are to be adults in our thinking. Following Christ doesn't mean losing the messy complexity of the world for black and white simplicity, it doesn't mean that every choice becomes obvious and straightforward, that every situation becomes morally perspicuous. This is one of the dangerous attractions in the language of "surrender": that all my quandaries will be resolved through someone telling me what to do again. I can once more be a child whose decisions are made for me. I can regress to irresponsibility.

Third, if our lives are surrendering to God, then what place is there for wisdom? God does not simply give us a list of do's and don't's that we either accept (surrender to) or reject. He guides us in a true and living way, a path of peace, in which we are to walk. This wisdom requires that we pay close attention to the world around us, to ourselves and to the opportunities available at this time.

Do not get me wrong. Following Christ requires the denial of self (Mark 8.34), indeed, dying to oneself, an end to the rebellious self that seeks to live without God. Perhaps in this sense we can speak of a surrender, an end to the impossible quest for self-sufficiency. But this "death" is the prelude, perhaps even the necessary condition, to a "resurrection" in which our whole being is renewed and transformed. This process includes our minds, which are not switched off or put onto autopilot.

Obedience to the will of God is not a matter of a struggle between a human and a divine will and the former being conquered by the latter through sheer force. Instead, obedience in the scriptures is sharing the same mind (Philippians 2.5), being wooed by love to seek a unity of purpose. Jesus says, "If you love me, you will keep my commandments" (John 14.15). This isn't a threat or emotional manipulation. It is a description of the nature of love, particularly when one realises that in the context of the farewell discourse where Jesus makes this statement, his commandment is to love one another (John 13.34-35). Love obeys, that is, continues to participate in love, because that is the nature of true love.

In sum, Jesus isn't recruiting impressionable minds who simply swallow and regurgitate his teaching. He wants friends who understand him, who know what he was doing and seek to participate thoughtfully and creatively in that mission.

"I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing; but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father."

- John 15.15.

What are the sources of obligation?

In a discussion on Milan's blog, I was asked, "what are the sources of moral obligation to the state and/or parents, aside from consent?" I thought I would post my answer (slightly edited).

---

What are the sources of obligation? Many and varied, though I would even want to question the language of “obligation” as a primary way of speaking about morality. I’d prefer to refer to concepts such as our freedom to love within moral community.

Opportunities to nourish the good and redeem what is evil are granted by God as gifts. They are occasions to reflect something of divine generosity and faithfulness and so to express our true humanity and creatureliness. Put in slightly less theological language, moral virtues are excellences in character that belong to what is properly humane and their development constitutes part of the gift and privilege of becoming more human, more ourselves.

A crucial aspect of human existence is our identity being formed in community, being received from those around us (not in a deterministic way, since the reception is not purely passive but can be creative). And so relationships of trust and mutual care are at the heart of ethical deliberation. We are therefore to honour the relationships into which we are born precisely as a reminder that our existence and identity are received, not self-forged.

These relationships may begin with a family circle (“honour your father and mother”) and move out from there. At higher levels of abstraction, such as a nation, then the appropriate honour may be quite limited. For a modern nation-state, as an invention of modernity, the appropriate form of honour may be quite minimal indeed. Established political authorities are part of the network of relationships into which we are born and which we are to receive with thanksgiving, though not without critical and creative receptivity to possibilities of growth and reform. And the necessity of such critical and creative work regarding the contemporary nation-state is evident in all kinds of ways, not least the ways in which most contemporary governments fail miserably in their appointed task of minimising evil in the ecological sphere, and so collude (with corporate power amongst other things) in the undermining of the conditions under which human society can flourish.

Such are some thoughts off the top of my head. Sorry if they are a little shorthand at points. Hopefully, they give you a little bit more of a taste of where I’m coming from. I began by noting the sources of moral obligation to be varied, and moved on to speak of our identity as humans (and as creatures: our moral community extends beyond the boundaries of homo sapiens). I could equally have spoken about becoming more like Jesus, the true human, or of living in light of God’s promised future, or living in line with the realities of the created order, or of the imitation of God’s gracious care, or of responsiveness to God's summons. Each of these require more unpacking. I guess my point is that I see morality as a web of sources and resources for growing in faith, hope and love. Consent takes its place amongst these resources as an aspect of human will expressed in relationships. Consent creates and requires trust (in some measure) and so forms part of faith (which is more or less another word for trust, in my book). Consent therefore has an important place in moral discussion, but not an exhaustive one (as is often assumed or claimed by many political liberals – using the word in the technical, rather than partisan sense, to refer to a worldview based on voluntarism and so placing consent at the core of interpersonal and political morality).

Sex and singing: creation and creating co-worshippers

Praise YHWH!

Praise YHWH from the heavens;
   praise him in the heights!
Praise him, all his angels;
   praise him, all his host!

Praise him, sun and moon;
   praise him, all you shining stars!
Praise him, you highest heavens,
   and you waters above the heavens!

Let them praise the name of YHWH,
   for he commanded and they were created.
He established them for ever and ever;
   he fixed their bounds, which cannot be passed.

Praise YHWH from the earth,
   you sea monsters and all deeps,
fire and hail, snow and frost,
   stormy wind fulfilling his command!

Mountains and all hills,
   fruit trees and all cedars!
Wild animals and all cattle,
   creeping things and flying birds!

Kings of the earth and all peoples,
   princes and all rulers of the earth!
Young men and women alike,
   old and young together!

Let them praise the name of YHWH,
   for his name alone is exalted;
   his glory is above earth and heaven.
He has raised up a horn for his people,
   praise for all his faithful,
   for the people of Israel who are close to him.

Praise YHWH!

- Psalm 148 (NRSV).

We are not alone in the universe. We humans are but one member of the choir that the psalmist exhorts into praise of the Creator. And this isn't just animals; even inanimate creatures are included: astronomical bodies, topographical features and meteorological events.

The theme of creation praising God is part of the theological basis for an ecological ethics. The fact that trees and hills and sun and moon all praise God places us in a relationship to them mediated by our common worship. They are our co-worshippers and so how can we see ourselves in competition or see them as objects to be exploited? We are dependent upon them for our task of praise and so we join with them as one, rather than just standing over against them in privilege and distinction. Of course a parallel socio-economic point can be made from the fact that both kings and babies, princes and paupers are to join together in praise. No one can consider another worshipper irrelevant or expendable.

God's faithfulness will not abandon his worshipping creatures, though it is important to remember that his faithfulness to his Son didn't stop him dying, but took the shape of cross and resurrection. Creation's own liberation from bondage to decay (and the redemption of our bodies) doesn't necessarily mean that we (or the world) are safe from death, only that even destruction and decay cannot thwart God's purposes.

This goodness of creation as the sphere of God's worship is indeed part of the reason why childbearing is good. We rejoice in the abundance and diversity of life and the goodness of being and are free to share that delight with others, including little strangers whom we welcome into the world as our co-worshippers. However, this is also the basis for considering moderation in our procreation (as well as our consumption, discussed elsewhere), since God is not dependent upon us to make more worshippers. If God's original blessing on us to be fruitful and multiply undermines his blessing on other living beings to also be fruitful and multiply, then we have to wonder whether our delight in divine blessing has become too narrow in vision and focus. These complementary perspectives don't determine an obligation one way or the other (we are neither obliged to have children nor to refrain), but are free to act in wisdom and joy under the blessing of God.

Shades of green: why is ecological degradation wrong?

Not all attempts to be ecologically responsible are the same. There are some huge differences between groups and individuals that are often simply lumped together as "environmentalists".

Sometimes these differences are discussed in terms of focus. For instance, Michael Northcott's The Environment and Christian Ethics identifies three broad approaches. Those who emphasise the intrinsic value of the non-human world and regret its destruction or transformation by humans he calls ecocentric. Those who emphasise the damage to human society represented by ecological degradation he calls humanocentric (others use the term anthropocentric, which keeps the Greek etymological theme). Those who emphasise God's glory and delight in the created order such that destructiveness is an affront to divine purposes he calls theocentric. These are not necessarily mutually exclusive and particular thinkers may draw upon multiple lines of thought. Each will lead in somewhat different directions at certain points, but the main difference lies in how they analyse the problem of ecological degradation. Why is it wrong for us to be clearing the rainforests, to be emptying the oceans of fish or to be dumping over 100 million tonnes of plastic each year? Is it because we lose species and damage ecosystems that are beautiful, unique and irreplaceable? Or because we're undermining our ability to feed and clothe ourselves, because the cost of replacing the lost ecosystem services is a drain on human society, because we're running up an ecological debt we can't possibly repay and so driving off a cliff? Or are they wrong because they represent a human attempt to uncreate, a perverse parody of God's original work?

Personally, I think any answer that doesn't draw on all three strands is likely to be deficient and lead to a poor response. Pure theocentrism could give the impression that as long as our hearts are in the right place, it doesn't matter if our actions are any benefit to our neighbour (human or non-human). Pure ecocentrism might imply that humanity itself is the problem and that any human modification of the "natural" order is wrong. Pure anthropocentrism risks becoming instrumentalist, and ignores the fact that God pronounces the created order "good" prior to the creation of humanity. These are caricatures, but all three reasons can find a place in an account that is attentive to the holy scriptures.

Why be green? Ecology and the gospel I

A series in three parts
Part One: God the materialist
Part Two: The renewal of all things
Part Three: Three steps towards heaven on earth

Part One: God the materialist
Australia's ex-prime minister Kevin Rudd famously described climate change as “the greatest moral challenge of our generation”. It was an exaggeration, of course, and one that has already come to haunt him.

The greatest moral challenge of this and every age is whether we will trust the God and Father of Jesus Christ or an idol of our own construction, whether we will love our neighbour as ourselves, or love ourselves to the harm of our neighbour, whether we will hope in the Spirit who raises the dead, or submit to the spirits of denial, despair and desperation in the face of death.

Within this moral challenge, what place do the real threats found in today’s massive and wide-ranging ecological degradation have for a disciple of Christ? Not just climate change, but biodiversity loss and extinctions, fresh water stress, deforestation and the destruction of other habitats, resource depletion, desertification, soil degradation, ocean acidification, overfishing, disruption of the nitrogen cycle, invasive species: the list goes on and on and investigating any of these issues in greater detail is a task that is both alarming and depressing. Many honest observers despair for the future of life as we know it. Is concern about such matters a distraction from the gospel or even a dangerous false agenda proposed by pantheist environmentalists?

The short answer is that Christian discipleship cannot be reduced to ecological responsibility, but nor can it be divorced from it. The good news of Jesus remains good news even in the face of ecological catastrophes, and is good news to those anxious about a world under increasing strain from the effects of our collective activities.

Let us take a quick walk through some key scriptural and theological concepts here.

God is a materialist. Matter matters to God. He made a physical world teeming with all kinds of life that he declared “good, very good”, and which he blessed so that it might become even more abundant (Genesis 1). The pinnacle of creation was not humanity, but the seventh day of rest (Genesis 2.1-4). He made humanity not to plunder the riches of the earth, but to serve and keep it (Genesis 2), to share with all the living beings in his blessing of fruitfulness and to join with them in praising the Creator (Psalm 148). If our “filling” of the earth undermines God’s blessing on other creatures, then we’re doing it wrong.

Being creatures amongst a good creation means that we belong with the dirt: from dust we came, and to dust we will return (Genesis 2.7; 3.19; 18.27; Ecclesiastes 3.20). Like all living things, we are dependant upon the Spirit of life and so members of the community of creation. Being a creature amongst creatures means acknowledging that the world, though stunningly bountiful, is not infinite, and its ecosystems, though remarkably resilient, are not invulnerable; to claim it is so would be to deify the created order, since only God is truly inexhaustible. And it means acknowledging the goodness of life beyond humanity, and indeed our shared dependence upon the provision of God; we flourish or wither not just like the flowers of the field, but with them. Israel learned the hard way that the land’s bounty or scarcity was connected to their faithfulness to God’s good instruction (Deuteronomy 28).

The impossibility of fear

“The first thing that must be said, and which can never be said powerfully and triumphantly enough, is that human fear has been completely and definitively conquered by the Cross. Anxiety is one of the authorities, powers, and dominions over which the Lord triumphed on the Cross, and which he carried off captive and placed in chains, to make use of as he wills. In the Old Covenant, too, there was a powerful command: ‘Fear not!’ But this command was challenged in various ways within the process of revelation: by the finiteness of the region illuminated by grace, by the fact that the grace that had been granted was characterised by hope for what had not yet arrived, by the incomprehensible threat of darkness breaking into the region of light despite the guarantees, and finally by man’s relapse again and again into sin. Christ removed both the finitude of grace and its modality of hope when he tore down the dividing wall between heaven and earth (by his Incarnation), between earth and the netherworld (by his salvific suffering and his descent into hell), and between the chosen people and the unchosen Gentiles (by his founding of the Church) and when the Father established him as the light of the whole world and the king of all three realms (Philippians 2.11). Thereby every reason the redeemed might have for fear has been invalidated. The ‘world’, which as a kingdom of darkness stared Christ in the face at his coming and yet was ‘conquered’ by him (John 16.33), has no more claim on the Christian. Neither can any of the ‘elements of the world’, those ancient ‘principalities’, ‘powers’, ‘rulers of the world’, and whatever else Paul may call the known and unknown principles of the created cosmos, in whatever dimension they may be and however they themselves may be disposed towards Christ their Sovereign – neither can any of these be cause for anxiety. And ‘the last enemy to be destroyed’, death, is not exempt from this victory (1 Corinthians 15.26), nor is the devil himself who ‘now’, in the tribunal of the Cross, has been ‘cast out’ (John 12.31) – those twin powers which until then had held the sinner in unbreakable bonds and of which he could only be afraid. From one end of the New Covenant to the other, from the ‘great light’ that dawns in the Gospel to the final victory of the Logos in the Apocalypse, we hear of this subjection and dismantling of all worldly powers under the Son of God, who was chosen from all eternity to be their king. And since this lordship has been entered upon once for all, and the Victor merely ‘waits until his enemies should be made a stool for his feet’ (Hebrews 10.13), anxiety too has been banished and overcome once and for all. And this is so not merely in a juridical sense and by rights, but, for those who belong to Christ, ontologically and essentially. Insofar as he posses the life of faith, the Christian can no longer fear. His bad conscience, which makes him tremble, has been overtaken and girded up by the ‘peace of God, which passes all understanding’ (Philippians 4.7). On Easter day Peter can no longer fear the One whom he has betrayed three times. His anxiety has been taken away, and confident love has been granted him in its place. John knows this most profoundly: ‘[although] our hearts condemn us […], God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything’ (1 John 3.20): he knows about the love he has poured into the erring heart through the Holy Spirit, a love against which all the self-accusation of the sinner cannot prevail: ‘Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you’ (John 21.17). The sinner surrenders, he no longer has any hope of countering, with something of his own or with anything else, the abundance of this hope that has been granted to him.”

- Hans Urs von Balthasar, The Christian and Anxiety
(trans. Dennis D Martin and Michel J. Miller; San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2000 [1952]), 81-84.

Balthasar has plenty more to say about fear and its place in the Christian life, but this is where he (and we) must begin: the old power of fear is broken. For the Christian, it is a defeated force; no longer is it a master of our minds or behaviour, but a mere servant.

And this is the key point for Balthasar. Utterly vanquished, fear still has a role to play even (and especially) in the obedient Christian life. But that is for another day. To begin with, it is crucial to allow oneself to soak in this reality. Whatever reason there was to fear has dissolved, whatever cause for anxiety, it is embraced and held in the love of the crucified one. We live in a new day and the shadows have lost their terror.
First image by CAC.

The heart of the problem with industrial society

"It is no longer possible to believe that any political or economic reform, or scientific advance, or technological progress could solve the life-and-death problems of industrial society. They lie too deep, in the heart and soul of everyone of us. It is there that the main work of reform has to be done - secretly, unobtrusively."

- E. F. Schumacher, Good Work.

The heart of the problem is the problem of the heart. It is in the selfishness and greed, the pride and stubbornness, the lovelessness and apathy, the gluttony and presumption of our hearts that ecological problems have their roots. Yes, ignorance has played a role. Good goals have been pursued with unintended consequences. But the ways in which they have been pursued, the priorities this has reflected and the unwillingness to change when the harm has become clear, are all matters of our basic orientation to ourselves, to life, to our neighbour and ultimately to God. And it is here in the heart that the real battle lies. Of course social structures, ingrained habits, and official policies are not unimportant, but unless there is a fundamental change of heart then other changes will be cosmetic (this is not to say that sometimes structural change might not proceed and contribute to a change of heart, simply that unless change is wholehearted, it is unlikely to last or be effective). And here again the gospel of Jesus Christ is good news, because in it we find healing for wounded hearts, courage for faltering hearts, focus for straying hearts, wisdom for foolish hearts and joy for tired hearts.

Who is a child? I

“And whoever welcomes a little child like this in my name welcomes me.”

- Matthew 18.5

Introduction
I would like to begin a new three part series that attempts to give a rough outline of what, or rather who, is a child. In one sense, this is simply one way into a theological account of humanity, a discourse which interests me. But in another sense, I hope to begin a dialogue with parents, prospective parents, those who care for young people and those who have ever been a child, about the theological underpinnings of raising children. Why? Because children in our culture are too often ignored as an inconvenience or worshipped as idols. Also because Jessica and I are expecting a little girl in December. And today is Jessica's birthday and this was something she asked for.

So, who is a child? My answer will come in three parts (each with a few sub-points):
• A precious gift of the Father and a member of the community of creation
• A brother or sister for whom Christ died and an image-bearer called into service of neighbour
• A recipient of God's Spirit, an addressee of God's word and a bearer of living hope

A precious gift from the Father of all
The first thing to say about children is that they are received. Although they come from human flesh and partake in their parents’ DNA, they arrive gratuitously. They cannot be bought or sold, earned or deserved. They are unnecessary, entirely contingent, thoroughly dependent upon a source outside themselves. They are an expression of divine grace from one called Abba, Father, from whom all good gifts originate. They are not simply another one of his many gifts, but are a particularly precious one.

And so they are to be welcomed with thanksgiving wherever they are found. They are strangers arriving at our door, to whom warm hospitality is due. They ought not be turned away empty-handed or shut outside but received with joy. And once they have crossed into our lives they must not be abused or abandoned, but should be generously provided with all they need.

A member of the community of creation
As God’s creations, children share in the common existence of all creatures. They too fall under the original divine blessing; they are good, very good. They take their place amidst a complex and interdependent web of relationships, expressing their creaturely dependence upon God through interdependence with their neighbours, human and non-human. Like us and all living beings, they require nourishment, warmth and protection since their lives, like ours, are fragile and vulnerable. Theirs are particularly vulnerable. Compared with most other animals, human children are born very immature and with few resources to contribute to their own survival. And so while we receive them from God, they receive care from us. They require attention and affection, others who will take responsibility for them and provide for their needs.

Like the rest of us, they need the rest of us, and like the rest of us, they have something with which to bless the rest of us. They are recipients of care, and yet from the beginning and increasingly, they are also a source of blessing, a conduit of divine generosity. We are not simply to receive them from God as blessings, but to receive blessings from them.

Children are one of many, and the dependency shared by all created beings is particularly apparent in them. Yet they also have their own distinct being. They are not their father or mother. Their existence is not exhausted by reference to the family, the society and environment into which they are given. They are unique members of a common kind and so each requires particular attentiveness to this child.

And yet this uniqueness is not an undifferentiated negative freedom as some have falsely imagined pure subjectivity. Although they each have their own stories, they are born into larger stories already underway. They are not the beginning, but a new start within something already begun. And so they belong to particular locations, particular people, particular communities, particular cultures. They will be raised to speak particular languages and hold particular beliefs. These may be open to revision and correction as all living traditions inevitably are, and yet they belong within a tradition nonetheless. Tradition is not a prison from which to escape, but the ground under our feet. We do not fly like the angels (who, being immortal, did not arrive in history midstream like we each do and so do not require tradition). We are human from humus (earth), Adam from adamah (ground). We require a given basis upon which to walk, both literally and metaphorically, even if we are also nomads whose journeys may not always be circular.

Consequently, raising a child within a tradition is not an evil imposition or a form of child molestation, as it has become fashionable to claim in some circles. It is a gift and a necessary provision. No child begins the human race again, but we all receive from those who have come before us. Similarly, no child can claim to end the human race, and so these children will themselves become the bearers of tradition to future generations.

” Tell it to your children, and let your children tell it to their children, and their children to the next generation.”

- Joel 1.3

See here for the second post and here for the third and final post in this series.
Images by Steve and Bill. All children pictured in this series are my nieces and nephews.

Augustine on worship and love

"To this God we owe our service - what in Greek is called latreia - whether in the various sacraments or in our selves. For we are his temple, collectively, and as individuals. For he condescends to dwell in the union of all and in each person. He is as great in the individual as he is in the whole body of his worshippers, for he cannot be in creased in bulk or diminished by partition. When we lift up our hearts to him, our heart is his altar. We propitiate him by our priest, his only-begotten Son. We sacrifice blood-stained victims to him when we fight for truth 'as far as shedding our blood'. We burn the sweetest incense for him, when we are in his sight on fire with devout and holy love. We vow to him and offer to him the gifts he has given us, and the gift of ourselves. And we have annual festivals and fixed days appointed and consecrated for the remembrance of his benefits, lest ingratitude and forgetfulness should creep in as the years roll by. We offer to him, on the altar of the heart, the sacrifice of humility and praise, and the flame on the altar is the burning fire of charity. To see him as he can be seen and to cleave to him, we purify ourselves from every stain of sin and evil desire and we consecrate ourselves in his name. For he himself is the source of our bliss, he himself the goal of all our striving. By our election of his as our goal - or rather by our re-election (for we had lost him by our neglect); by our re-election (and we are told that the word 'religion' comes from relegere 'to re-elect'), we direct our course towards him with love (dilectio), so that in reaching him we may find our rest, and attain our happiness because we have achieved our fulfilment in him. For our Good, that Final Good about which the philosophers dispute, is nothing else but to cleave to him whose spiritual embrace, if one may so express it, fills the intellectual soul and makes it fertile with true virtues.

"We are commanded to love this Good with all our heart, with all our soul, with all our strength; and to this Good we must be led by those who love us, and to it we must lead those whom we love. Thus are fulfilled those two commands on which 'all the Law and the prophets depend': 'Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, and with all thy mind', and, 'Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.' For in order that a man may know how to love himself an end has been established for him to which he is to refer all his action, so that he may attain to bliss. For if a man loves himself, his one wish is to achieve blessedness. Now this end is 'to cling to God'. Thus, if a man knows how to love himself, the commandment to love his neighbour bids him to do all he can to bring his neighbour to love God. This is the worship of God; this is true religion; this is the right kind of devotion; this is the service which is owed to God alone."

- Augustine of Hippo, The City of God, X.3.

This passage is critical for all kinds of reasons. Notice how Augustine takes the regular elements associated with worship in the ancient world and shows how they are transformed in Christian worship. The temple is our body and the body politic of the Christian community. The altar is our heart. The sacrifice is humility. And so on. This is not, as is sometimes thought, merely a "spiritualisation" of outward religion, in which meaningless rituals are replaced with right motives. The difference between ancient religions and Christianity is not merely captured by the opposition between "outward" and "inward" piety. True worship is always both. The key difference for Augustine is captured better by the concept of "wholeheartedness". True worship is the wholehearted turning of the self to God, without reservation or any hedging of bets. It is to turn our entire orientation, to re-turn, to a God-ward direction in our life story.

And this is why, Augustine explains, true worship is so closely tied to love in the biblical tradition. For wholehearted love is a motion of the entire life towards the object of our love. If we are to worship God, we must love him wholeheartedly.

And the command to love our neighbour must be understood, not in competition with this primary love, but as its horizontal expression. We love God by loving our neighbour. Yet this also means we love our neighbour by loving God, and inviting them to share that same passionate commitment to the origin of our bliss and goal of our striving.

Notice also that while the love of God is the source and destination of our love of neighbour, it is only through being loved that we learn how to love. Only as we are loved by our neighbour do we learn that God loves us, and only in the light of God's love are we able to love God and others for God's sake.

Finally, a word on Augustine's metaphors. Love is both resting in, and striving after; both choosing of a goal, and finding fulfilment; it is both active and passive. It is an embrace, where I am both taken and held, and also warmly grasp in return. But this is not merely the embrace of a friend, a comfort hug, a warm greeting or a fond farewell. It is the fertile cleaving of lovers, whose embrace produces the gift of new life.

God Almighty

“God cannot be termed ‘the almighty’ in an absolute sense and seen as the cause of everything that happens in this world. What is almighty is God’s essential love which ‘bears all things, endures all things, believes all things and hopes all things.’ (1 Corinthians 13.7)”

- Jürgen Moltmann, Creating a Just Future, 33.

The problem of evil raises the question: is God good but unable to do anything about evil? Or is God able to end all pain and suffering, but simply unwilling? Or are pain and suffering not actually that bad after all? All three options are theologically disastrous, hence the problem.

Dying for the half-hearted and the corrupt

A priest is trying to escape from his sick captor, who is lying on the ground holding his ankle and decides at that moment to make his confession:

"Shall I tell you what I've done? - it's your business to listen. I've taken money from women to do you know what [...] I've given money to boys - you know what I mean. And I've eaten meat on Fridays." The awful jumble of the gross, the trivial, and the grotesque shot up between the two yellow fangs, and the hand on the priest's ankle shook and shook with the fever. "I've told lies, I haven't fasted in Lent for I don't know how many years. Once I had two women - I'll tell you what I did..." He had an immense self-importance: he was unable to picture a world of which he was only a typical part - a world of treachery, violence and lust in which his shame was altogether insignificant. How often the priest had heard the same confession - Man was so limited: he hadn't even the ingenuity to invent a new vice: the animals knew as much. It was for this world that Christ had died: the more evil you saw and heard about you, the greater glory lay around the death; it was too easy to die for what was good or beautiful, for home or children or a civilization - it needed a God to die for the half-hearted and the corrupt.

- Graham Greene, The Power and the Glory (Penguin, 1962 [1940]), 97.

Sin is boring, repetitive, old. God says, "Behold, I make all things new!"
Photo by Greg Fox.

Augustine on the emotions

Scripture places the mind under the governance of God for his direction and assistance, and places the passions under the governance of the mind for their restraint and control so that they may be turned into the instruments of justice. In fact, in our discipline, the question is not whether the devout soul is angry, but why; not whethuer it is sad, but what causes its sadness; not whether it is afraid, but what is the object of its fear. To be indignant with the sinner with a view to his correction, to feel sorrow for the afflicted with a view to his release from suffering, to be afraid for one in danger so as to prevent his death - those are emotions which, as far as I can see, no sane judgement could reprove.

Augustine of Hippo, City of God, IX.5.

Augustine is sometimes criticised for being too Platonic, too quick to dismiss the emotions and the bodily in favour of the rational soul. But here, he shows quite a dramatic break with the classical tradition regarding the emotions.

Augustine claims that despite their differences, the various ancient schools of thought all basically agree that the wise man will suppress his emotions as much as possible, that the affective life is sub-human and to be transcended through reason. Earlier, he lampoons an example in Stoic teaching of a philosopher who is embarrassed that his face turns pale and his knees shake when he is on a boat threatened with shipwreck. For the Stoic, these unwanted expressions of fear don't belong in a life ruled by reason. The philosopher is to tell himself that the shipwreck can do no harm to his virtue, which is all that really matters and so is to be calm and composed.

Augustine contrasts this with the Christian view, in which the emotions not only have their proper place, but their own rationality. They can be investigated and understood, appreciated and even turned into "the instruments of justice". That is, he thinks that a healthy emotional life is possible in which my feelings are neither forcefully suppressed as irrational manifestations of my bodily nature, nor allowed to rule and make me their victim. The philosopher in the wind-tossed boat, far from aiming at a Stoic detachment from the crisis, ought to be rightly concerned for the lives of those on board and that emotion ought to lead him to do all he can to save them from the danger.

It is indeed possible to love God with all your heart, as well as all your mind.

Introducing HIM

Michael Jensen, fresh from the success of YOU: An Introduction (a great Christmas present, BTW), has now recommenced work on the sequel HIM: An Introduction. If you missed the last one, this is your chance for your blog quotes and jokes to become immortalised in the archaic medium of ink and paper. Head on over and join the discussion. So far, Michael has been talking about the puzzling invisibility of God, the startling claim that God is love and the controversial and often misunderstood belief that God chooses.
Five points to everyone who makes at least one semi-relevant comment over on HIM and then comes back here to say you have done so (with a link to where you made the comment).

Did Jesus really love his disciples?

We pretend that it was only the ungodly who were offended at Christ. What a misunderstanding! No, the best and most kindly man, humanly speaking, who has ever lived, must be offended at him, must misunderstand him; for what love is, divinely understood, this the best of men could learn only from Him. The love Christ, humanly understood, was not self-sacrificing - anything but that; he did not make himself unhappy, in order, humanly understood, to make his disciples happy. No, he made himself and his disciples, humanly speaking, as unhappy as possible. And he who had had it in his power to establish the Kingdom of Israel and make everything so pleasant for himself and his followers, as every contemporary could see clearly enough! [...] No, humanly speaking, it was indeed madness: he sacrifices himself - in order to make the beloved equally unhappy with himself! [...] Was this really love: to gather some poor, simpleminded men about him, to win their devotion and love, as no other had ever won it, to pretend for a moment to look out for them, as now the prospect of the fulfillment of their proudest dream is revealed to them - in order suddenly to reconsider and change the plans; in order without being moved by their prayers, without paying the least attention to them, to plunge them down from this seductive height into the abyss of all dangers; in order, without resistant, to give his enemies power; in order, under mockery and insult while the world rejoiced, to be nailed to the cross as a criminal; was this really love?

- Søren Kierkegaard, Works of Love (trans. David F. Swenson and Lillian Marvin Swenson; Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1946), 90-91.

Did Jesus really love his disciples? He demanded everything of them and then abandoned them, leaving them vulnerable and liable to persecution. He lead them along a path that involved loss of property, freedom, friends, community-standing and ultimately, life. Was he really of any help to them? Kierkegaard's point is that Jesus' claim to love is incomprehensible without reference to God. Do you agree?
Photo by AL.
Five points for naming the department that occupies the rooms in the centre of the picture.

Ellul on God and human freedom

God does not mechanize man. He gives him free play. He includes issues of every possible kind. Man is at the time independent. We cannot say free. Scripture everywhere reminds us that man’s independence in relation to God is in the strict sense bondage as regards sin. This man is not free. He is under the burden of his body and his passions, the conditioning of society, culture, and function. He obeys its judgments and setting. He is controlled by its situation and psychology. Man is certainly not free in any degree. He is the slave of everything save God. God does not control or constrain him. God lets him remain independent in these conditions.

- Jacques Ellul, The Politics of God and the Politics of Man
(trans. Geoffrey W. Bromiley; Eerdmans, 1972 [1966]), 16.

I wonder how Ellul understands Paul's discussion of being "slaves to righteousness" in Romans 6. Immediately after using the phrase, Paul does mention that he considers it imprecise. So Ellul is certainly onto something important here in how God exercises his authority. Being a slave to sin is a very different kind of service to being a slave of the Lord Jesus Christ, in whose service is perfect freedom.