The problem with Rowan Williams, and other links

Ben Myers: The problem with Rowan Williams. And some opposing thoughts from Michael Bird.

AlterNet: A history of the 40 hour working week. Why less is often more. Some evidence to back up the call to spend less, earn less, work less.

The Conversation: Oh the morality - Why ethics matters in economics. "An economic system that rewards amoral self-interest creates economic instability, fractures economic insecurity, fosters concentrations of economic power, exacerbates economic inequality and violates ecological sustainability."

The Inquisitr: Corruption in the USA. Eight states given an "F" and zero receive an "A".

Chomsky: Losing the World: American Decline - Part One and Part Two - The Imperial Way: American Decline in Perspective.

Liz Jakimow: What does table fellowship have to do with global justice? Quite a lot.

BGS: Kony 1984. There have been plenty of things written about the Kony 2012 viral video. I thought this was one of the more interesting ones, highlighting the way the film relies on the pursuit of peace through war, just like in 1984.

Reuters: Reports of smoking's demise are greatly exaggerated. Reports of smokers' demise are not. While rates of smoking (and associated mortality) in the developed world are in decine, they continue to grow rapidly in the developing world: "if current trends continue, a billion people will die from tobacco use and exposure this century - one person every six seconds."

The (en)rich list. One hundred inspirational people "whose contributions enrich paths to sustainable futures". Their "net worth" is measured in Google hits, which is perhaps just as arbitrary as counting dollars.
H/T Jeremy.

BWAA: The end of greed. A resource for a five week sermon series and/or Bible study that reflects on "consuming as if God, people and the planet matter". I haven't looked in detail at the contents, but I like the outline.

1. Consuming as if God matters: Rejecting consumerism, embracing the kingdom
2. Consuming as if People matter: Rejecting greed, embracing generosity
3. Consuming as if People matter: Rejecting exploitation, embracing justice
4. Consuming as if the Planet matters: Rejecting destruction, embracing care
5. Consuming as if Animals matter: Rejecting cruelty, embracing kindness

H/T Liz.

For Lent, how about giving up biosphere destruction?

‘Jesus said; “The time has come. The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!”’

- Mark 1:14-15.

"Continuing to pollute the atmosphere when we know the dangers, goes against what we know of God’s ways and God’s will. We are failing to love not only the earth, but our neighbours and ourselves, who are made in God's image. God grieves over the destruction of creation and so should we. Repentance means finding creative, constructive and immediate ways of addressing the danger. It happens when God’s Spirit enables a change of mind and change of heart, prompting a turn from past wrong and a decision to change direction. For our generation, reducing our dependence on fossil fuels has become essential to Christian discipleship."

- Ash Wednesday Declaration, 2012.

This quote is from a statement released today that was composed by Operation Noah and signed by numerous Christian leaders:

• Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury
  
• Desmond Tutu, Archbishop Emeritus of Cape Town
  
• Barry Morgan, Archbishop of Wales
  
• Richard Chartres, Bishop of London
  
• Keith O'Brien, Archbishop of St Andrews and Edinburgh
  
• Val Morrison, Moderator of the General Assembly of the United Reformed Church
  
• Lionel Osborn, President of the Conference of the Methodist Church
  
• David Arnott, Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland
  
• Joel Edwards, International Director of Micah Challenge
  
• Ellen Teague, Chair, National Catholic Justice & Peace Environment Group
  
• Metropolitan Kallistos of Diokleia
  
• Jonathan Edwards, General Secretary of the Baptist Union of Great Britain

The full text of the declaration can be found here and is worth reading. H/t Jason. Ash Wednesday is an appropriate day to consider our mortality, not just individually, but as a civilisation, and perhaps even as a species.

"Remember, o mortal, that you are dust, and to dust you shall return. Repent and believe the good news."

What does development mean?

This is the best brief account of development I have heard. If you are at all concerned for global poverty and the role of faith communities in global development (whether from the perspective of personally belonging to one, or from the experience of being puzzled or suspicious about the place of religious groups in these matters), I commend these thirty-seven minutes to your attention.
H/T Jarrod.

Lent: Simplicity and contentment

Lent is a time for the deliberate discipleship of our desires through refraining and focusing. Often this is portrayed as a somewhat arbitrary burden to be carried, as though the carrying of a burden were itself good. But fasting (or refraining from some regular activity) is not an end in itself, but a means to sharpen our hungering and thirsting for righteousness, for God’s justice. Such disciplines as we accept for this period are not meritorious works of supererogation earning divine brownie points, nor do we seek out pain so as to enjoy the relief from it all the more at its end. We are, in Rowan Williams’ evocative phrase, setting out on "a journey into joy". Lent is a time of preparation for the good news of Easter, but in the light of the cross and resurrection, we discover that the very disciplining of our desires is already good news, not merely preparation for it. The gospel does not add ethics as an appendix, the fine print of obedience you sign up for when you accept the gift of forgiveness. No, ethics is already good news. The disciplining of desire is also the liberation of desire; by learning self-control, we become free. We are learning to love rightly and so learning to be more human.

I submit that a key aspect of this joyful journey for many western Christians is an exodus of liberation from consumerism, the state of bondage in which we are consumed by what we consume. Our toys so often own us. In such a context, learning to delight in less is an affirmation of a life with more of the things that matter. The simple life is not only a matter of justice (living simply so that others can simply live) – though it is certainly that in a world of ever more apparent ecological limits – the simple life is also the good life. Receiving all God’s gifts with thanks enables us to let (many of) them go and to let go the desire for more that makes us discontent. Let us instead become discontent with our discontentment, which robs of us of peace and perspective.

The pursuit of justice, insofar as it is woven within the Christian good news, is also part of this same joyous adventure. It is not a fight, but a dance. We do not create it or establish it; we share from what we have ourselves received. Our goal is not the spread of consumerist “wealth” to every member of society and every corner of the globe. Our goal is that in walking the way of the cross, all may discover it to be the way of light.

Not yet concrete enough? Go and sell your possessions, then come follow Christ.
Originally posted at Theopolis.

Is the economy too important to be left to the economists?

"The questions that the book leaves us with are, I think, primarily these: What kind of culture have we allowed to develop? Not only the subculture of financial institutions and money makers, but the culture in which that happens, the whole culture of our society. What are the sorts of behaviour we reward?

"What are the kinds of human beings we want to see around, that we've encouraged to be around? And that's certainly one of the issues that's come up very sharply in these conversations. Have we not begun to create a kind of human being, whose default setting is really profoundly selfish, profoundly introverted? And how on earth do we build a society on that kind of basis?

"So the questions about culture run very deep. They are questions about what we think is worthwhile in human behaviour. And unless we really tackle that kind of question, really revive our imagination about what human beings might be and should be, then the whole of our economic structure will not really change.

"Culture change begins, as one contributor to the book says, with behavioural change. And behavioural change begins with a change of vision, a change of horizon. So that the subsidiary question is, not only what have we taught people to value and reward, but what have we taught people to aim at? Have we shrunk their possibilities? Have we drawn in their horizon in a trivial way, a way that does less than justice to what human beings are really capable of?

"The authors of this book ask that question, fully conscious of the way in which the level of reward in the financial sector in recent years has been so enormous as to obscure ethical considerations quite a lot. But it's proved not to be an endless pot of resource, it's proved to be a path of self-contradictory and essentially destructive behaviour in practice.

"We need to recovery integrity, we need to recover a sense of the connection between economics and other things; and that's perhaps the other big question that comes up here. Is economics too important to be left to economists? And finance too important to be left to financiers? Don't economic questions always bring with them questions of value in something more than financial terms? How are we to get that back on the agenda?"

- Rowan Williams, "Crisis and recovery: the cultural roots of the financial collapse".

The panel discussion I mentioned yesterday was very interesting and worth spending 90 minutes on. A video will soon be available here.

Archbishop Williams was his usual complex and lovable self, even managing a reference to Sergei Bulgakov and this excellent essay. The Guardian economics editor, Larry Elliott had many interesting things to say, but it was Tory MP and former ecological journalist, Zac Goldsmith who really connected some important dots. It is good to know that there are some politicians at least who seem to "get" some of the issues and are willing to speak publicly about them. He joked that his political career was likely to be short. If I was in his electorate, I would vote for him.

Rowan Williams in debate: economics and ethics in a crisis

Rowan Williams has a new book and is to discuss the ideas with an interesting panel tomorrow night from 6.30pm in a live webcast.

"During the ongoing global financial crisis, the values on which our society and economic structures are based have been called into question. In a new book to be published by Palgrave Macmillan, Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and Larry Elliott, Economics Editor of The Guardian, have brought together a collection of leading commentators to examine the role of morality and ethics in business. At this event, both discuss these fundamental themes together with Zac Goldsmith MP, Editor of The Ecologist, and Robert Skidelsky, professor of political economy, politician and historian."

The most urgent theological task for this generation

"Notably, the question on which the debate between creationists and evolutionists largely centres - 'By what mechanism and in what timeframe did the world come into being?' - is exactly the kind of abstract question in which the Bible displays no interest. This question is abstract because its answer - whatever answer we may accept - imposes no obligation for us to act upon the world in just and honourable ways. As the foregoing discussion implies, it is better to ask, while reading the early chapters of Genesis, 'What does it mean for humans to be creatures among other creatures, all of us radically dependent upon God? What actions are incumbent upon us as a consequence of our status as creatures?' Rowan Williams offers an answer fully congruent with the whole biblical account: 'Being creatures is learning humility, not as submission to an alien will, but as the acceptance of limit and death' (Williams, 2000: 78). Consciously being creatures means discovering the trustworthiness of God, and allowing 'a generosity creation of community to be "enacted" in us' (76). However, his further observation appears somewhat too sanguine now, an ecologically disastrous decade after it was written: 'The discovery of solidarity in creatureliness has obvious consequences, which hardly need spelling out, for our sense of responsibility in the material world; it puts at once into question the model of unilateral mastery over the world' (76; emphasis added).

"In fact, the most urgent theological task for this generation may well be spelling out the material consequences of a sense of self that proceeds from contemplating '"the wise, ordered, gracious and loving mutual correspondence" among creatures' (Williams, 2000: 76, citing St John of the Cross). Surely theologians, professional and lay, will need to do that in conversation with scientists, naturalists, and natural philosophers, including but not exclusively people of biblical faith."

- Ellen F. Davis, "Reading the Bible after Darwin: Creation and a Culture of Restraint" in Theology after Darwin (eds. Michael Northcott and R. J. Berry; London: Paternoster, 2009), 68.

So, here is the original answer to my riddle a couple of days ago. This book is worth reading (almost) in full, containing a collection of very thoughtful pieces on what it means for theology once we take Darwin seriously and stop trying to beat our heads against a wall of denial about our origins. I helped (in very minor ways) to put this volume together (being research assistant to the editors) and was reminded of it after preaching on "Evolution or Genesis?" this Sunday (I didn't pick the title and questioned the "or" in it).

Now that I've distracted you with that context, on to the substance of the quote.

I am sympathetic to both Williams and Davis on this point, though think they both need further nuancing. I have addressed the Williams piece that Davis is discussing at some length in my chapter on his account of creatureliness.

I have said before, I think that the most greatest moral issue of our day is whether we turn to Christ or anti-Christ in faith, to self or neighbour in love, to false hopes or hope that first goes through the cross.

And corresponding to this, I believe that the most important theological task of this (and every generation) is to hear and believe the good news of Christ for us today. This is both paying close attention to the grand announcement passed down in the holy scriptures and proclaimed by the church, and it is listening to this message today. The gospel does not change, but the hearers do, and with them and their contexts, the emphases and insights of the gospel. The gospel proclamation - the reign of God has come near in the crucified and risen Christ - will have different implications for people in different circumstances. And this means that making a generalisation about the particular shape of this task for an entire generation will also nearly always be difficult. Not only will different members of a generation face differing situations, but each will have multiple ways in which the gospel transforms her or his existence. So the theological task is always both singular in focus ("For I resolved to know nothing while I was among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified" - 1 Corinthians 2.2) while complex in applications.

Nonetheless, I don't believe it illegitimate to attempt (fallible and partial) interpretations of the aspect or aspects of the gospel that will have particular resonance within a particular historical context. And this is how I read the above claim: that (one of) the highest priorities for Christian theology in a society slowly waking up to the scale of ecological and resource crises resulting from the success of industrialism at reshaping the globe, is an articulation of the human self as creature amidst a community of life.

I think more needs to be said about being a creature in community with Christ, and all kinds of other nuances, but the basic idea is worthy of consideration.

Good and bad growth

"Implied in what has just been said is a recognition of the dangers of 'growth' as an unexamined good. Growth out of poverty, growth towards a degree of intelligent control of one's circumstances, growth towards maturity of perception and sympathy – all these are manifestly good and ethically serious goals, and, as has already been suggested, there are ways of conducting our economic business that could honour and promote these. A goal of growth simply as an indefinite expansion of purchasing power is either vacuous or malign – malign to the extent that it inevitably implies the diminution of the capacity of others in a world of limited resource. Remember the significance of scarcity and vulnerability in shaping a sense of what ethical behaviour looks like."

- Rowan Williams, Ethics, Economics and Global Justice.

I offered some reflections of my own on the dangers of pointless growth back here. Not all economic growth is pointless. Stupid poverty remains stupid. But there is such a thing as stupid wealth, and that is a far more relevant issue for most of us.

New ABC Religion & Ethics portal

Augustine identified a similar pathology at work in the Roman elites, who indulged in various forms of luxury and illicit pleasures to distract them from the inevitability of death. He argued that the fear of death - the fear, in other words, that their lives would not be remembered - meant the Roman elites lived in fear of the loss of status and comfort. They were greedy for glory hoping by glory their lives might have significance.

- Stanley Hauerwas, "Can greed be a good?"

The Australian Broadcast Corporation has recently launched a new web portal for religion and ethics. It opens with pieces from Rowan Williams on refugees, Stanley Hauerwas on greed, Paul Griffiths on death and dying and much more. Keep an eye on it.

Link love

Milan hits the mark on another punctuation pet peeve and asks "how cynical should Obama make us?". There is also a good conversation (with plenty of links) happening on his blog about police and black bloc activity in Toronto during the recent G20 meeting.

Sam reminds us that we have one defender, so don't need to defend ourselves.

Matt quotes Williams on the need for science to be human. Very timely.

The jellyfish are coming: "All around the world, jellyfish are behaving badly—reproducing in astonishing numbers and congregating where they’ve supposedly never been seen before."

PhD on calling for papers.

Prof Eleonore Stump on the problem of suffering and divinely sanctioned violence in the OT.

Jason has a Stringfellow quote on nationalism and patriotism.

And Halden links to the best review ever.

Our culture is not materialist enough

"It's been said often enough but it bears repeating, that in some ways – so far from being a materialist culture, we are a culture that is resentful about material reality, hungry for anything and everything that distances us from the constraints of being a physical animal subject to temporal processes, to uncontrollable changes and to sheer accident."

- Rowan Williams, Ethics, Economics and Global Justice.

Matter matters to God. Christians are not anti-materialist (though we may be anti-consumerist). Williams identifies here an important dynamic in our attitude towards the good things in life. We do not actually enjoy them. We generally do not stop and give thanks, nurture contentment and joy with the good gifts we already have, but rush on to acquire more, consume more, experience more, as though if only by accumulating enough we can somehow transcend the fact that we have limits. It is not possible to have every experience, to hoard every treasure, to play with every toy. Let us enjoy what we have and be content.

For Williams, so much comes down to whether we will admit our creaturely status or whether we will continue to try to be gods. To put it another way: will we face reality and embrace the good gift of mere humanity? If we will, then we are free to drop the pretense of invulnerability and our delusions of control and finality and embrace responsibility on a human scale.

Love casts out fear

Love casts out fear. The truth is that what is most likely to get us to take the right decisions for our global future is love. The temptation is to underline fear so as to persuade one another of the urgency of the situation: things are so bad, so threatening, that we have to do something. And indeed there are moments when we might think, rather bitterly, that the human race is still not frightened enough by the prospect of what it has stored up for itself. But this is to drive out one sickness by another. That kind of fear can simply paralyse us, as we all know; it can make us feel that the problem is too great and we may as well pull up the bedclothes and wait for disaster. What's more, it can tempt us into just blaming one another or waiting for someone else to make the first move because we don't trust them. We need more than that for lifegiving change to happen.

- Rowan Williams, "Act for the sake of love",
a sermon in Copenhagen Cathedral, 13th December 2009

This short piece is a good read to start the new year.* Archbishop Williams gave this sermon on 13th December at an ecumenical service in Copenhagen Cathedral in the middle of the climate negotiations. It is a reflection on 1 John 4.18a: "There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear". Williams' argument is that despite many reasons to be fearful, only love can sustain a life-affirming response to the threat of climate change. While I'm not sure I'd follow his reading of Romans 8 in the penultimate paragraph, I think his central claim is an important one: fear is ultimately an insufficient and destructive motive for action. There is much fear-mongering used by both activists and deniers. While fears have a place in shaping a prudent response, only love is truly renewable.
* Though if you're looking for something with a bit more zing this Christmastide, you could do worse than have a look at Kim Fabricius's provocative Christmas sermon. And for some fun, try this caption competition.

Someone's been reading my blog...

The threat posed by climate change and environmental degradation tends to make us think about survival and look for solutions that will guarantee survival. That's a reasonable response to any threat; but the sheer complexity of this situation and the continuing uncertainty about some of the precise detail (how late is it? have we reached the 'tipping point?) make us especially vulnerable. We are bound to realise sooner or later that easy solutions are not at hand and that there is no one cause of the whole crisis that will allow us to point to some single scapegoat. This in turn makes us vulnerable to panic on one hand, apathy on the other, and the illusion that someone will both take the blame and assume the responsibility of finding a solution – usually meaning a series of grand technological solutions requiring massive investments of money nobody seems to have.

- Rowan Williams, "The Climate Crisis: Fashioning a Christian Response"

Either we're both barking up the wrong tree, or we're displaying similar bark because we belong to the same tree. Either way, at least I'm not alone.

This address, given just days ago in Southwark Cathedral contains many important insights and claims. To pick just some of them, I agree with Williams that the first casualty of ecological degradation is the human soul, that we can't damage what is not us without also damaging ourselves. And I also agree that we are in need a reality check about the meaning of being human, that we need re-examine the ways in which many of our cultural assumptions about affluence and consumption lead us away rather than towards human flourishing.

However, we depart company when he says "To be human, in the biblical world view, is to be given a responsibility for the future of life." I do not think that it is our obligation (nor, contra Williams, was it Noah's) to keep something (even ourselves) alive. We are to care for life, and respect it, and nurture it. But it is God who gives life and in the end it is also God who takes it away or preserves it. God may and does call us to a role of responsibility for one another and his good world. But to believe that we bear the full burden of the future of life is another form of human hubris, and like all hubris, it will eventually crush us.

UPDATE: I should have pointed out that Sam Norton has also been responding to the Archbishop's address here and here and we share much in common on this topic. I would affirm almost everything he says in his second post. However, perhaps the most significant difference between us would be that I believe national governments can still have a significant effect (for good and ill) on the effectiveness of the "airbag" and "seat-belts" and so national political action is not irrelevant (though it is by no means either primary or a "solution"). To shift Sam's car-off-the-cliff metaphor, perhaps if we think of a car that has lost traction and is sliding off the road, then even though a crash cannot be avoided, the actions of the driver can still make a major difference.

A bloodless feast: swine flu and communion

XXX. Of Both Kinds.
THE Cup of the Lord is not to be denied to the lay people; for both parts of the Lord's sacrament, by Christ's ordinance and commandment, ought to be ministered to all Christian men alike.

- The XXXIX Articles of Religion in The Book of Common Prayer, 1662.

The Archbishops of York and Canterbury have recently advised all members of the clergy to refrain from offering both elements at communion due to risk of swine flu infection through the use of the common cup. If clergy wish to offer both elements they may use intinction (dipping the bread into the wine), as long as this is done by the presiding minister rather than the communicant (since many people misjudge and end up sticking their fingers in the cup, which obviously defeats the hygiene purpose). However, this is not required. Have the Archbishops thrown out the Articles? Is this blatant disregard for a founding document on the basis of a few sniffles?

I realise that many people smarter than I are genuinely concerned about swine flu, and a little research also uncovered the fact that section 8 of the Sacrament Act of 1547 provides that

"... the... most blessed Sacrament be hereafter commonly delivered and ministered unto the people... under both the kinds, that is to say of bread and wine, except necessity otherwise require..."

It is generally thought that the exception was because communicants ought to avoid a common cup in the event of plague. I am not sure why this exception was not included in the articles themselves, and since I can't currently find a copy of Cranmer's Forty-Two Articles (which preceded the more streamlined and famous Thirty-Nine Articles), I am not sure if this was simply an oversight.

While communion in both kinds is the norm for Anglicans (in faithfulness to Christ's institution), when only one element is received, the communicant is nonetheless still receiving the full sacrament. However, wouldn't it be better as a temporary measure during pandemnic simply to use personal vessels rather than no-one getting any wine? I realise that a common cup is a powerful symbol, but then so is everyone receiving both kinds.

Two styles of Anglicanism: on not being in schism

I have generally steered fairly clear of recent global Anglican politics, and for those interested there has always been plenty of coverage on other blogs. However, I thought I might make a comment on a recent address by Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, titled "Communion, Covenant and our Anglican Future". In it, he outlines possible implications of pursuing a covenant model of Anglican communion, including the possibility that some churches will signup and others won't, resulting in two kinds of Anglican churches.

23. This has been called a "two-tier" model, or, more disparagingly, a first- and second-class structure. But perhaps we are faced with the possibility rather of a "two-track" model, two ways of witnessing to the Anglican heritage, one of which had decided that local autonomy had to be the prevailing value and so had in good faith declined a covenantal structure. [...]

24. It helps to be clear about these possible futures, however much we think them less than ideal, and to speak about them not in apocalyptic terms of schism and excommunication but plainly as what they are – two styles of being Anglican, whose mutual relation will certainly need working out but which would not exclude cooperation in mission and service of the kind now shared in the communion. It should not need to be said that a competitive hostility between the two would be one of the worst possible outcomes, and needs to be clearly repudiated. The ideal is that both "tracks" should be able to pursue what they believe God is calling them to be as church, with greater integrity and consistency. It is right to hope for and work for the best kinds of shared networks and institutions of common interest that could be maintained as between different visions of the Anglican heritage. And if the prospect of greater structural distance is unwelcome, we must look seriously at what might yet make it less likely.

This point is worth making and repeating. That we may well end up with two Anglican paths (at a formal level) doesn't mean we all hate each other, or that all possibilities of ongoing co-operation or mutual mission are now closed. It might be sad, but it is not the end of the world, nor even of that thing known as Anglicanism.

I've been thinking recently about the merits and pitfalls of avoiding unnecessarily apocalyptic modes of thought in other contexts and so this quote jumped out at me.

Part of living prior to final judgement is that we are to refrain from judging others (e.g. Luke 6.37). This does not mean we must never make any kind of humble preliminary evaluation about the lives and witness of those who claim to represent Christ, but it does mean that we hold back from doing so in ultimate ways, pronouncing condemnation upon others. If we embrace the goodness of God's action in Jesus, then false teaching that denies or undermines it will need to be gently corrected, but it quite possible to do this without turning everyone with whom we disagree into a diabolical and godless villain.

One implication of this is that I think it is best to avoid using military language and thought-patterns in how we understand the present Anglican crisis. If we want to speak in terms of fighting our enemies, the holy scriptures remind us that our true foes are not those Christians on the other side of this or that issue. Our enemies are spiritual: the spirits of disunity, factionalism, pride, impatience, fear and so on. The Anglicans with whom we disagree are brothers and sisters for whom Christ died and who may well have been blessed with some of the very weapons required to help us fight our own demons.
PS For those struggling to understand exactly what the Archbishop's address means, the Bishop of Durham has published a commentary. There are many other responses in various places, but I post this one because it is as much exegesis as analysis of the Archbishop's text.

Saved to care: Williams on salvation

"In Christian belief, the world exists because of a free act of generous love by the creator. God has made a world in which, by working with the limitations of a material order declared by God to be 'very good', humans may reflect the liberty and generosity of God. And our salvation is the restoration of a broken relationship with this whole created order, through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ and the establishing by the power of his Spirit a community in which mutual service and attention are the basic elements through which the human world becomes transparent to its maker."

- Rowan Williams, Ethics, Economics and Global Justice

Of course, in this paragraph Williams is not aiming to be comprehensive and so does not here speak of the restored relationship with God in which salvation consists. Instead, he is discussing the relationship of humanity to the created order. Salvation is not simply becoming right with God, and not even just with one another. It is also the healing of our relationship with the whole community of creation in which we belong, a healing that consists of mutual service and attention. We are no longer self-absorbed, either as individuals or as the human race. Instead, we are turned inside out, in order that we might begin to mirror the loving care of God.

What does it mean for the world to become transparent to its maker? That God can finally see the world, or that we can ultimately see God through his restored creation? I assume the latter. That is, through communities of mutual service and attention, the love of God is manifest in the world.

However, such an understanding need not collapse the love of God into the loving service of the redeemed community. God's love is not exhausted by human expressions of it. Our careful attention will always be only a dim reflection of God's, more unlike than like. The sense in which humans reflect God's liberty and generosity is a properly human one. Our freedom and our capacity to give have good creaturely limits. These limits are not barriers to be overcome, but conditions of our existence to be explored and embraced.

Good books: a meme

I've been memed again. This time Matthew Moffitt from Hebel has tagged me and given me a list of theological book categories. The instructions tell me to:

i. List the most helpful book you've read in this category;
ii. Describe why you found it helpful; and
iii. Tag five more friends and spread the meme love.

I am going to break the rules immediately and amend the first point to read "List the most a helpful book you've read in this category". Here are the categories and my answers:

1. Theology
• Kevin Vanhoozer, The Drama of Doctrine
I take it that since "God" is listed (rather dubiously) at #3, this category is for books on the "method" or "how to" of theology. This wouldn't be the top book out of this list of 11, but it was one I enjoyed. I have reviewed it at length here.
Summary: All the world's a stage.

2. Biblical Theology
• Augustine, City of God
The first biblical theology. And the best. I received this as a 21st present from a far-sighted friend (thanks Ben!), who didn't realise that it would help send me to the other side of the world.
Summary: A tale of two cities.

3. God
• Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics IV/1
I never promised this would be an easy list. But if you want to get into glories of God, then there are few more profound guides than uncle Karl. Read this quote and then decide if you want to dive into the depths and discover that God is there too.
Summary: God is with us.

4. Jesus
• Jürgen Moltmann, The Crucified God
Although incomplete (and what account of Jesus isn't? Even John recognised as much), this book will push you to really think about what Jesus means for our understanding of God. ‘When the crucified Jesus is called the ‘image of the invisible God’, the meaning is that this is God, and God is like this. God is not greater than he is in this humiliation. God is not more glorious than he is in this self-surrender. God is not more powerful than he is this helplessness. God is not more divine than he is in this humanity.’ (205)
Summary: God looks like this.

5. Old Testament
• Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Creation and Fall
A short little book based on lecture notes from students who listened to lectures Bonhoeffer gave on Genesis 1-3. In many ways, these lectures are a model of creative faithfulness to the text, theological exegesis that asks after God and humanity, not just about me or about historical debates or contemporary fads.
Summary: They, hand in hand, with wandering steps and slow, through Eden took their solitary way.

6. New Testament
• N. T. Wright, Jesus and the Victory of God (or for the attentionally challenged, The Challenge of Jesus)
The book that took all the fragments of Sunday School stories and sermon pieces into which the Gospels had shattered and pieced together a picture of a human saviour who wins God's victory for Israel and the world. It took me almost two years to read (in a group), but I am a different person for it.
Summary: God wins.

7. Morals
• Oliver O'Donovan, Resurrection and Moral Order
How could I resist? Not an easy book, but one to chew over and digest slowly and repeatedly. It will nourish you for a long time if you are patient with it.
Summary: Ethics is good news and the resurrection is God's affirmation of creation and humanity.

8. (Church) History
• Meredith Lake, Proclaiming Jesus Christ as Lord
So I thought I'd pick something a little more contemporary, since this is the (church) history section. Meredith (known to many though her wonderful, though now somewhat neglected blog Faith and Place. If you read the current post, you'll understand why; her love for it has run into some competition) put together a history of the first 75 years of the Sydney University Evangelical Union. Since this was the context in which I cut my theological, pastoral, ministry and leadership teeth, I found the book fascinating. Perhaps a little less riveting for those not from Sydney, but it will really help you understand where many Sydney University Christians (like myself) are coming from.
Summary: And now these three remain: object one, object two, object three...

9. Biography
• Peter Brown, Augustine of Hippo.
I must say that I am not much into biographies for some reason, even though I know many people love them. I have enjoyed nearly all the ones I have read, but they have been few and far between. However, this is one that stands out for me because it is almost impossible to walk past Augustine for historical importance and Brown's biography is the definitive one against which others are judged. I read this book in fourth year while writing a thesis on Augustine in order to get some more context for his thought and found it fascinating. In particular, the evocation of the late Roman empire I found quite moving. Augustine lived in the dying days of the West and he knew it (and his greatest work, The City of God was written to address the issue). The image of Augustine dying as Hippo was under seige by barbarians and of his fellow monks smuggling his works out to save them from the destruction when the city fell will stay with me for a long time. In fact, it was a large part of the impetus behind my PhD project (outline coming soon).
Summary: Lord, make me pure, but not yet!

10. Evangelism
• John Dickson, Promoting the Gospel
Dickson combines deep historical knowledge, biblical deftness and theological nous with apparently effortless communication skills. This book will liberate you from the straightjacket of guilt that prevents you from promoting the gospel by showing you all the ways you are already involved in this great privilege. Shunned by some for rejecting the idea that every Christian is an evangelist, that is precisely why I recommend it since that is how the Bible pictures the church, in which each part does its work.
Summary: Not everyone is a mouth.

11. Prayer
• Rowan Williams, Where God Happens: Discovering Christ in One Another
Perhaps a surprising book to recommend on prayer, since it primarily addresses those familiar with meditative prayer. However, it is not limited to this audience, since its foundational message - that we discover Christ through loving our neighbour and prayer is what helps us pay attention - is universally applicable. Perhaps it sounds trite as I explain it there, but this little book is anything but.
Summary: "Everything begins with this vision and hope: to put the neighbour in touch with God in Christ."

I would provide links to each of these books at their various publishers, but I'm lazy. You have fingers. Google hasn't crashed. Do it yourself. I tag the first five people to read this post (which probably means you, unless the comments are filled with people saying that they have completed the task).

Ethics as vulnerability

"Now, you could say that ethics is essentially about how we negotiate our own and other people's vulnerabilities. The sort of behaviour we recognise as unethical is very frequently something to do with the misuse of power and the range of wrong or corrupt responses to power – with the ways in which fear or envy or admiration can skew our perception of what the situation truly demands of us. Instead of estimating what it is that we owe to truth or to reality or to God as the source of truth, we calculate what we need to do so as to acquire, retain or at best placate power (and there is of course a style of supposedly religious morality that works in just such an unethical way). But when we begin to think seriously about ethics, about how our life is to reflect truth, we do not consider what is owed to power; indeed, we consider what is owed to weakness, to powerlessness. Our ethical seriousness is tested by how we behave towards those whose goodwill or influence is of no 'use' to us. Hence the frequently repeated claim that the moral depth of a society can be assessed by how it treats its children – or, one might add, its disabled, its elderly or its terminally ill. Ethical behaviour is behaviour that respects what is at risk in the life of another and works on behalf of the other's need. To be an ethical agent is thus to be aware of human frailty, material and mental; and so, by extension, it is to be aware of your own frailty. And for a specifically Christian ethic, the duty of care for the neighbour as for oneself is bound up with the injunction to forgive as one hopes to be forgiven; basic to this whole perspective is the recognition both that I may fail or be wounded and that I may be guilty of error and damage to another."

- Rowan Williams, Ethics, Economics and Global Justice

I think this comment is very important for understanding Williams' whole ethical approach. He is deeply aware of the frailties and limitations of human potency. But these are not simply obstacles to be overcome in order for us to get on with what we ought to be doing; they are the very essence of what it means to be human, to be a creature of God. And so a correct (ethical) human response to this reality is the acknowledgement of the truth of our existence and a learning to live joyfully and humbly within our own skin.
Image by Steve Chong.

No divine guarantees

There is no guarantee that the world we live in will 'tolerate' us indefinitely if we prove ourselves unable to live within its constraints. Is this – as some would claim – a failure to trust God, who has promised faithfulness to what he has made? I think that to suggest that God might intervene to protect us from the corporate folly of our practices is as unchristian and unbiblical as to suggest that he protects us from the results of our individual folly or sin. This is not a creation in which there are no real risks; our faith has always held that the inexhaustible love of God cannot compel justice or virtue; we are capable of doing immeasurable damage to ourselves as individuals, and it seems clear that we have the same terrible freedom as a human race. God's faithfulness stands, assuring us that even in the most appalling disaster love will not let us go; but it will not be a safety net that guarantees a happy ending in this world. Any religious language that implies this is making a nonsense of the prophetic tradition of the Old Testament and the urgency of the preaching of Jesus.

- Rowan Williams, "Renewing the Face of the Earth:
Human Responsibility and the Environment"

This claim is central to my project. That we can destroy ourselves. Suicide is possible. Sadly, and all too frequently, as individuals. Perhaps not so easily as a race (though I wouldn't rule it out). But certainly as a society. There is no divine guarantee of civilisational continuity. And so there is no short-circuiting the debate over whether this might not in fact be our present trajectory through an appeal to God's sovereignty.

Why I am not a conservationist

The 'redemption' of people and material life in general is not a matter of resigning from the business of labour and of transformation – as if we could – but the search for a form of action that will preserve and nourish an interconnected development of humanity and its environment. In some contexts, this will be the deliberate protection of the environment from harm: in a world where exploitative and aggressive behaviour is commonplace, one of the 'providential' tasks of human beings must be to limit damage and to secure space for the natural order to exist unharmed. In others, the question is rather how to use the natural order for the sake of human nourishment and security without pillaging its resources and so damaging its inner mechanisms for self-healing or self-correction. In both, the fundamental requirement is to discern enough of what the processes of nature truly are to be able to engage intelligently with them.

- Rowan Williams, "Renewing the Face of the Earth:
Human Responsibility and the Environment"

This quote is an important corrective to romantic notions of conservationism that imply that humanity per se is the problem and that we ought to absent ourselves as much as possible from "the environment" because we only cause harm. Such an approach is disastrous for two reasons. First, it closes the possibility of positive action through which careful human attention and understanding enables us to participate in and focus the flourishing of the created order. Second, it ends up justifying the exploitation of the created order outside of certain "protected areas", or if not, then it implies that human self-destruction is necessary for the good of the planet.
Image by Brennan Jacoby.