Sometimes there is a darkness
In the wind that blows each day.
Small diseases of imperfections
Buzzing mozzies of brokenness
Limits, barriers, bumps in the road.
Drives you crazy.

But also, annoyingly, peace
And promise
And “get up and go”
And “push on regardless”
When faith is a casting of life to the wind.

Sitting still, is hard it seems,
When no one’s sure what stillness means
To rest, its true, requires great skill
To still the mind, and quiet the will
To rest requires great discipline
A strength, I’ve yet, to enter in
But in my weakness, I find joy
In daily trying to enjoy
The stillness of the Lord’s embrace
The glimpses of my Saviour’s face
Upon the bus, in city skies
In cups of tea, in strangers eyes
Songs, and laughter I find best
Draw me into Jesus’ rest.

By Megan Howell
Photo Credit: crsan licensed CC-BY-SA

Off-Line asks:

I’ve been pondering… the extra-scriptural nature of our (i.e. Christian) nativity.

…I know that JC was in all likelihood not born in 1AD or Year 0. That for shepherds to be in the field at night it would have been Sept/Oct not mid-winter and snow on the ground. A little like “Queens birthday” it doesn’t fuss me that we don’t celebrate on the right date. However it nags at me that so much of what we have in our heads, and on shelves as Nativity scenes at this time of year is just nonsense.

• Inn/Guestroom – Luke uses each (Samaritan, and Passover prep) so why do we translate it as Inn in the Christmas account. No “room” at the “inn” instead of no space in the guest room.
• There is NO stable! There is a manager.
• There are shepherds
• There are no magi on the night – when they do arrive there are 3 gifts not 3 people – the seem to come some weeks/months perhaps year later.

Does it matter that we pollute/corrupt/tamper/supplement the account of God with us? What other piece of scripture would we be so careless with?

However, even having decided that you want a biblical nativity, how do you get from where we are to somewhere scriptural?

It’s an awesome question and a fraught topic.  It reminded me of an overheard conversation at this year’s Christmas pageant in Hobart – “What! The churches are even sticking their nose in for this!”  Groan.

In the popular mind the nativity story is becoming not only increasingly inaccurate but increasingly irrelevant.   I have made more than one conversation in which, having explained a theological point about God revealing himself to us, the light suddenly dawns as lines are drawn from this gospel reality to Mary and Joseph to Christmas etc.

Nevertheless the nativity story is there along with Princer and Bitzen and Rudolph and tinsellitis and the North Pole and the whole Claus family.  Although emphasising it runs the risk of being accused of being Grinch-like. Bah humbug.

While it’s easy to accuse the Santa cultus on Coca Cola, the point you make about diminishing meaningfulness of contemporary nativity I think derives more from Victorian & Georgian England, the conceptual inculcations of the KJV (yes, “inn”), and the tradition of holding a “nativity play” in which pleasing the children (and finding parts for them) pre-empts accuracy.

And yes, the whole traditional nativity is completely inaccurate.  Google is your friend in getting the details, but here area couple of semi-decent links:

• http://web.cloudbow.com/blog/?p=5
• http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/how-historically-accurate-is-the-traditional-nativity-437743

But the substantive question is: should we resist this “tampering” with the story?

And my answer is “yes.”  In fact, it is “of course.”  Chief among the tasks of proclaiming God’s word is the so-called “joining of the two horizons” – the original word spoken to its original context is applied sensibly as a word within our context.  The only way to do this well is to get our head around the historical facts.

Indeed, the historical reality of the nativity is a much more powerful story: the witnessing shepherds are socio-economic rejects, the “no place in the inn” is not about a petulant innkeeper but about the limits of familial (covenant family!) hospitality.  I have a friend who does midwifery work in third world countries providing sanitary equipment for expecting mothers who would otherwise give birth within the mud and mildew of their tents.  Take away the Victorian romance you have a screaming teenager giving birth in full-to-the-brim home amidst the smell, noise, and refuse of animals and peasants.  God with us indeed, God with us at our most utterly utterly deprived.

So what to do?  Some random suggestions.

1. Tell the real story, as best we can.  In conversation, in preaching, etc.
2. Engage with, but don’t lambast, the Christian romantics.  This is a “just because I don’t have a Christmas tree doesn’t mean you shouldn’t” type consideration.
3. Steer our nativity presentations away from the false and towards the correct.  Again, this can be done offensively, or subversively and gently.  I’ve seen nativity scenes constructed and beautifully carved that are abstract and symbolic and take you past the fluff to dwell on the reality.  I’ve seen traditional scenes rearranged – the wise men placed further away as if on a journey for instance, proclamations from the angels done in full “Peace on earth and good will to those upon whom his favour rests.”
4. Emphasise the important stuff.  This isn’t about cute babies, it’s about God’s humbling of himself to lead an estranged people.  This doesn’t mean being theologically nerdy.  The Big Picture Bible is one that does a great job of telling a children’s story about the coming of God’s “Forever King”
5. Encourage people to read Matthew and Luke.

So nothing particularly revolutionary.  Just steady as she goes solid homiletics for the whole of life really.

Blessings for the New Year.

Anonymous asks:

What do you think about this article on the age of the earth? http://creation.com/how-old-is-the-earth

The material is from a creationist book that has sold 350,000 copies. I believe he did a good job of arguing his case. The videos are good as well.

Hi Anonymous, Thanks for the question.  For my broader thoughts on evolution/creation I have an earlier post: here

You ask specifically about a particular article (linked above).  I don’t have time to do an in-depth consideration, or check out the videos, but an overview reading shows nothing surprising.

The age of the earth is a bone of contention in this debate.  Evolutionary theories require an old age for the earth (read millions of years), and some (not all) creationist theories require a young age for the earth (read 6,000 years).  The 6000 years figure derives from genealogies and other data from the biblical text and equates broadly (and understandably) to the broadest scope of recorded history.

The issues is therefore a question of “prehistory” – evolutionary theories posit an extensive prehistory.  Certain creationist theories posit that there is no prehistory, unless you count the five days that preceded the creation of Adam.  There’s a big difference.

The referenced article rehearses the typical attempt at rebutting evolutionary claims about the age of the earth.  These are:

• Sedimentation and other geological metamorphoses do not require millions of years to occur.  In particular, they can occur very quickly if you allow for a global cataclysmic event such as a global flood.
• Radiometric dating makes assumptions about the initial level of isotopic ratios and their nett rate of decay in the presence of environmental factors.  Anomalous results for known geological events are cited.

And there is a similar rehearsal of apparent evidence for a young earth, namely:

• The seas are not salty enough.  (Ironically, this is a macro-level equivalent of the radiometric dating technique, and makes the same assumptions – initial state, environmental impact on a non-closed sytem.)
• Similarly, the moon is too close, their isn’t enough helium in the atmosphere, and there aren’t enough supernovae.

To which my response is a deliberate “meh.”  I’m tired of these debates, not because I’m overwhelmed by totalising scientists and have decided to throw in the towel, but because the important stuff is not in this debate.

The bit of history that I’m most interested in is the last 6000 years, which everybody agrees has existed.  I’m interested in this bit of history because it’s the bit has people in it, and I’m interested in people.   As far as prehistorical facts go, the Bible tells me little if anything, apart from the fact that God did it, and it was good, and we made it bad.

The age question is not even relevant to some of the bastions of creation science.  You don’t need a young earth to have a biblical global flood.  You don’t need a young earth if you posit cosmological timeframes between Gen 1:1 and Gen 1:2 and attribute the six (literal) days to God’s creative intervention, preparing a home for his people, on an all-ready created (as part of the “heavens and the earth”) that was as yet unshaped/unmade/unformed.

So, in my mind, the age of the earth is a non-essential point, in a non-essential debate, and has little bearing on the truthiness of Scripture.

Photo credit: http://www.sxc.hu/photo/1005409

It’s taken me a while to digest this book by local academic and author, Kristi Giselsson.  Kristi is a compassionate and articulate philosopher who has made balanced and thoughtful contributions to the public debate on a number of social issues recently.

This book Grounds for Respect: Particularism, Universalism, and Communal Accountability is a published version of her doctoral thesis in philosophy at the University of Tasmania.  It is an exploration of “the question of what grounds are needed in order to justify respect for others.” (Page 1).  This is a fundamental question, the diverse answers to which contribute a great deal to the unspoken (and often unknown) assumptions that shape and guide the cross-purposed conversations that epitomise public dialogue.

Giselsson’s contribution is to explore this using philosophical analysis and critique.  This necessarily involves a philosopher talking about philosophers, because that is how such an analysis works: positions are described, clarified, analysed for their differences; their implications are drawn, their internal and external logic put under test; and finally a path of good thought and good conscience is found through the heady tangle of these broad-shouldered giants.

For myself, this was my first introduction to this level of philosophical treatise.  I came to the book motivated by the practical and socio-political applications: when you’re talking about personhood issues such as abortion, euthanasia, marriage, freedom of speech and so on, then the nature and basis of respect is of significant relevance.  I was struck, however, by the philosophical exploration itself.

I have only had one experience like it, when I first studied church history in my BMin studies, suddenly I had insight into where people where coming from, what motivated them, and why.  Similarly, Giselsson’s exploration of the pedigree of philosophical thought, the sort of thought that is currently and actively applied in our Western World, gave me new insights.  It also made me thirsty to learn more, hence my current little project.

Giselsson’s thesis is that “some form of universalism is needed to ground respect for the particular; in order to justify why we should respect others” (Page 2).  Universalism is the sense of moral universalism which asserts that there is a particular system of standard, morality or ethic that can be applied universally and which is not contingent on the particulars of a person (e.g. their rationality or autonomy).  Giselsson also emphasises a foundational humanism as a necessary aspect of our notions of respect.  This is “humanism” as an affirmation of an innate, non-contingent, ontological, and unique reality (and value) of the human person.  

The form of Giselsson’s argument therefore includes an exploration and ultimate rebuttal of posthumanist philosophers such as Derrida, Foucalt and Lyotard (all of whom I now want to read for myself).

…posthumanist critiques of universalist assumptions within humanism are themselves based on unacknowledged ethical assumptions of universal value and respect for others… (Page 2)

…at the very heart of Derrida, Foucault and Lyotard‘s critique of humanism lay a moral judgment; that universalism is inherently unjust in its apparent exclusion of particular others… this ethical judgment is made without recourse to any justificatory philosophical grounds, but rather relies on the force of its rhetorical – and ultimately humanist – appeal alone. This ethical rejection of universal humanism has in turn had an enormous impact over a wide range of disciplines, but specifically in those areas of scholarship that deal with those traditionally marginalized within Western philosophy…” (Page 117)

The broad brush strokes of the argument might be characterised by breadth and depth.  This first part of the book is a consideration of depth – is anything less than universalism enough to provide a coherent basis for respect?  Giselsson shows that posthumanism either fails to provide for respect, or where it asserts its claim that it can, it has actually slipped into the universalism (albeit usually of a less caricatured sort) that is trying to be avoided.

The second part of the book looks at the breadth question and therefore tests the bounds of humanism.  In particular, could animals be included as “human” to the extent that respect can be both encapsulated and applied?  This second consideration tests utilitarian approaches such as that of Singer.  Giselsson shows that while a utilitarian approach looks to assess a person’s particular characteristics or functions to justify respect, a humanist approach asserts common ontological or innate grounds that are more robust.

By way of example:

Dismissive views of the elderly and those suffering from dementia are only affirmed by utilitarian principles that emphasize the greater good of society and the comparative worthlessness of a cognitively impaired life. (Page 175)

Having drawn the broad boundaries. Giselsson turns to those who thinking is within the bounds of universalist humanism and examines their formulation for grounds for respect.  The thread being followed here is not the extent of human being but the characteristics – self-determination, self-creativity, accountability, subjecthood and the like are all explored.  She finds them wanting for her purposes:

I have also argued that current Western liberal and humanist theories that attempt to readdress the foundations needed for universal respect still conceptualize these grounds in terms of what characteristics an individual must possess in order to qualify for equal moral consideration.  These grounds still revolve around traditional notions of moral personhood, these being selfdetermination, rationality and autonomy; and they inevitably exclude all humans not possessing such qualities. (Page 259)

Giselsson therefore posits her own formulation of human being, which has to do not with biology or economic characteristics but with our “way of being” (Page 260).  She therefore emphasises community as a necessary and innate part of human personhood and demonstrates that a concept for respect can rest upon the operation of accountability within and from the human community.  She explores this conception for inconsistencies and negative implications and concludes:

The ontological foundation I have offered, while partial rather than complete in its conception, seeks to balance the tension between particularism and universalism by showing a structure of human morality that is irreducibly communal in its practice. Moreover, while arguing that the inter-dependent practices of social standards of value and reciprocal accountability are thoroughly communal in nature, the universal standard of value implied by the assumption of reciprocal accountability – that each human is an end in themselves – ensures that justice is not reduced to communal consensus alone, as this standard provides for the possibility of respect for particular individuals beyond the relative nature of localized and particular norms (Page 296)

The foundation that Giselsson offers is indeed “partial rather than complete” because while she circumscribes respect with the well-argued conception of communal accountability she stops short, understandably, before filling that notion with articulations of what particular behaviours or attitudes or beliefs might be worthy of being held to account.  Therefore, while she has demonstrated grounds for respect without recourse to divine revelation, I question whether she could build upon those grounds without doing so.

This book took some time to digest.  It made me realise how little I know and how much I need to know about the philosophical tendrils that generate and move the values and people of our society.  There is so much lack of respect, belligerence and assertions and misuse of one another in Western Society.   Much of it comes from those sections of society who espouse care and tolerance and love yet find it so hard to articulate respect and understanding and community outside of their own narrow bands.

This book has made me thirsty to know more, to explore in particular some of the 20th Century philosophers who influenced the current generation of culture-shapers.  To that end this book has whet my appetite.  And that makes it a good book!