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He worries that his sermons have made little impact and told only half-truths; he feels an awkward disconnect between the things that matter to him (friendships, the sunrise, the excitement of romantic love) and the things he does week by week. And yet, he is at heart a Christian who is on the side of love over justice, Gospel over Law, grace over all. This is a novel for Bible students, clergy and trainee ministers to read and ponder—which is where I must express my surprise. Gilead won the 2005 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. It was heralded as a masterpiece by reviewers everywhere. And yet, without a decent knowledge of the issues involved in Calvin’s theology, let alone the modern variations of Karl Barth, Ludwig Feuerbach and others, the story makes only superficial sense. Did all the reviewers have theology degrees or Calvins’ Institutes on their shelves? I doubt it. So why was it praised far and wide? From the comments made by the reviewers, I suspect they detected in the slow-pulsed, contemplative, spiritual reflections of Reverend Ames something approaching real soul-searching. In its quietness, in its honest self-examination, this novel deals with something that really matters: your beliefs. Although the details of the Reverend’s discussions over predestination or prevenient grace may not have carried meaning for every reader, the deep realities behind these doctrines—things like whether we are held responsible for our thoughts and deeds, or whether love for another overrules tradition, or whether a remorseful person who has committed great wrongs can in fact be more acceptable to God than a ‘Good Son’—connect deeply with us all. No theology degree required. What this may mean is that the questions to which Christian faith provides answers are already in the minds and hearts of many a reader. They need the time and mental space that a novel such as Gilead affords in order to come to the surface and into full view. Beliefs this important deserve nothing less. Greg Clarke (We ask that you please keep all comments to 200 words or less)
(We ask that you please keep all comments to 200 words or less) I have a piece of the Berlin Wall on my desk at home that
someone bought for me in a store in Germany. It’s possible that a
budding East-German entrepreneur newly introduced to the wiles of
capitalism produced it by spray-painting their driveway before jack
hammering the cement for the desired effect, but it looks authentic and
I’m happy to believe it is. It’s twenty years since the Wall came down so suddenly,
unexpectedly and joyously. The edifice that so powerfully symbolised
the might of Soviet Communist oppression is now—in large and small
pieces—a treasured possession of museums, hotels, and universities and
of artists, historians and tourists. Ironically and poetically it has
come to symbolise freedom, beauty and creativity. It reminds me of an earlier time when the Apostle Paul stared through the bars of a Roman prison cell upon an empire he had experienced as immense in scope, lavish in achievement and brutal in dealing with potential opposition. It was to this empire that he took his message of an obscure Galilean teacher being the key to life. His chances of success in spreading this news must have looked as improbable as the gospel he preached. But two-and-a-half centuries later, within the same empire that periodically tortured, crucified and fed to lions adherents of this novel faith, followers of Jesus had slowly and peacefully gained influence and numbers to the point where an ambitious emperor could think it worth converting. The walls of pagan religion and unbelief were inexorably eroded, and the cross—a macabre symbol of cruelty and oppression—came to represent the greatest story of freedom and hope ever told. Simon Smart
(We ask that you please keep all comments to 200 words or less) Over the centuries Christians have taken great comfort and inspiration from Jesus’ ‘Sermon on the Mount’ and his call to his followers to trust God with their lives and not to be anxious about the small stuff: "Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?” (Matthew 6:25 – 27) These words of timeless wisdom are especially relevant in the West today given the high rates of anxiety that afflict us as we wrestle with the uncertainties and fears of a materially abundant life, or ‘luxury’s disappointments’, as folk singer Billy Bragg once put it. But I’ve always wondered what those same words of Jesus sound like today in the ears of believers in places like Ethiopia, Uganda, or Sudan when a mother holds her dead child whom she has begged God to save; or a father remains helpless while his family wastes away from starvation before his eyes. How could they feel anything but bitterness when coming across those words from the Gospel? But here’s the thing. Believers in places of the world where health, food, safety from violence, comfort and security are scarce do in fact find in these verses immense hope and reasons for joy. I was reminded of this again this week, listening to Greg Clarke’s interview with Agnes Nyamayarwo. Agnes is well known as the Facilitator and founding member of the Mulago Positive women’s Network—a support group for HIV positive women in Uganda, and for her work with Bono from U2 in raising awareness in the U.S. of the African AIDS dilemma. Her life story neatly fits with most people’s greatest nightmares. A family ravaged by death, heartbreak and the merciless affliction of AIDS. And yet, she remains full of purpose and a deep sense of trust in God. I found the same thing a couple of years ago when I interviewed a young Sudanese woman newly arrived in Australia, having spent twelve years in Kenyan refugee camp. She’d lost a brother and a half-brother to the violence of the civil war. Most of her life had been one of imminent danger and loss. ‘God is always with you whether things are dangerous or risky …whether things are going well or not,’ she told me. Like Agnes Nyamayarwo, there was an elegance and dignity about her and the high value she placed on a peace that only God can provide. Some might want to dismiss this as a psychological coping mechanism—wishful thinking to help deal with the trauma of life. They could be right. But sometimes it’s in listening to the stories of the faithful from places less ‘blessed’ than our own, that the meaning of Jesus’ words comes to life. It’s the promise of a Father’s love that won’t go away; of a home prepared for those who believe and, in an ultimate sense, provision and security despite what life will throw at you. It’s a vision worth taking seriously. Simon Smart
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But there is also something wrong with most modern versions of the complaint. First, retellings of the evils of Christianity frequently involve gross exaggerations in popular discussion. This is the product of an unnoticed propaganda. I’m reading a stunning new book at the moment titled Atheist Delusions (Yale University Press, New Haven & London, 2009) by Eastern Orthodox scholar Prof. David Bentley Hart. One of Hart’s powerful arguments is that every new era retells the past in a way that elevates its own position as the great deliverer, the bringer of special freedoms; and that necessarily requires exaggerating, even lying, about the horrors of the past. We do this on a small scale when we talk about the moralism of the 1950s or the prudishness of Victorian England. It happened on a macro scale in the 18th-19th centuries, argues Hart, when Enlightenment leaders popularised the expression ‘Dark Ages’. Here was an attempt to describe the era of Christendom as an era of oppression, ignorance and violence, as opposed to the era of freedom and peace brought about by secular reason. No serious historian today could go along with this story. Hart writes: Hence modernity’s first great attempt to define itself: an ‘age of reason’ emerging from and overthrowing an ‘age of faith’. Behind this definition lay a simple but thoroughly enchanting tale. Once upon a time, it went, Western humanity was the cosseted and incurious ward of Mother Church; during this, the age of faith, culture stagnated, science languished, wars of religion were routinely waged, witches were burned by inquisitors, and Western humanity labored in brutish subjugation to dogma. All was darkness. Then, in the wake of the ‘wars of religion’ that had torn Christendom apart, came the full flowing of the Enlightenment and with it the reign of reason and progress. The secular nation-state arose, reduced religion to an establishment of the state and thereby rescued Western humanity from the blood-steeped intolerance of religion. This is, as I say, a simple and enchanting tale, easily followed and utterly captivating in its explanatory tidiness; its sole defect is that it happens to be false in every identifiable detail. This tale of the birth of the modern world has largely disappeared from respectable academic literature and survives now principally at the level of folklore, ‘intellectual journalism,’ and vulgar legend. (Atheist Delusions, Yale University Press, New Haven & London, 2009, 33-34) In my next post I’ll offer a couple of clear examples of this folklore approach to telling Christianity’s past. Right now, I simply ask readers to contemplate an important insight. Experts aside, most of us have picked up our knowledge of the Crusades, the Inquisitions and other horrors of Christendom from sources other than respectable academic literature. Is it not possible that we have simply accepted mere propaganda as fact? John Dickson
(We ask that you please keep all comments to 200 words or less) The complaint that religion leads to violence has been in the Top 10 Reasons Not to Be a Christian for decades. In the last few years I think its gone to about No.3 with a bullet
Christians have to acknowledge just how serious this complaint is. They also need to concede that it is partly right. Believers have done and said abominable things in the name of Christ. When we put this question to Prof Edwin Judge, one of Australia’s leading authorities of Western history, he insisted that the church has always been “a mixed bag; a mix of good and bad”. Modern believers have to face the facts and admit that the church has often failed to live up to Christ’s standards. In this context I find it fascinating that the opening statement of Sermon on Mount, which in many ways was a speech directed against those in first century Galilee who thought the kingdom of God could be established by violence against the occupying Romans, asks us to acknowledge our failures before God: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” *(Matt 5:3). The kingdom, Jesus says, belongs not to those who think of themselves as morally and spiritually rich, but to those who look into their souls and find poverty. Real Christians, therefore, shouldn’t have any difficulty admitting their failure to live up to the ideals of Christ; the true church likewise shouldn’t have a problem admitting the seriousness of the modern world’s complaint against it. Terrible things have been done in Christ’s name. The seriousness of the complaint against the church should not be underestimated. But in my next post I want to point out what I think is wrong with the complaint. John Dickson (We ask that you please keep all comments to 200 words or less) The reaction to the arrest of renowned film director Roman Polanski this month has been—to put it mildly—intriguing. The 76-year-old had admitted to unlawful sexual intercourse with a 13-year-old in 1977. He pleaded guilty to statutory rape, but fled the country before sentencing. For thirty years he has lived in France, raising a family and continuing his work without censure. Those lining up to defend the Polish director in his hour of need have been conspicuous by their positions of influence if not by their large numbers. The French Foreign Minister, no less, described the arrest as ‘sinister’. The cultural minister from the same country said it was ‘totally unjust,’ and felt it revealed a ‘scary’ side of America. And a host of sophisticates, European artists and Hollywood insiders have been quick to defend Polanski and cast his capture as cruel, barbarous and the result of persecution. ‘Incomprehensible overzealousness’ is how the arrest was described by Poland’s foreign minister Radoslow Sikorski. ‘He’s so talented.’ ‘It was years ago.’ Can’t we forgive and forget?’ It’s hard to imagine the same generosity being extended to a wayward Catholic Priest, or schoolteacher, no matter how long ago were their crimes. Forgive and forget. If only it were that simple! Yale University theologian Miroslav Volf writes in his book, The End of Memory – Remembering Rightly in a Violent World, of the need ultimately to put memories of past wrongs aside; of active ‘forgetting’ as part of forgiveness, healing and reconciliation. He could easily be misunderstood. Volf, himself a victim of intense and sustained interrogations by the government of then Communist Yugoslavia, insists that the Christian vision of the world entails the possibility of overcoming the past for both the victim and the perpetrator of wrongs. He holds out hope of healing from guilt and (at least partial) redemption even for those who have committed terrible crimes. But here’s the thing. This is no teary-eyed sentiment according to Volf. Nor is it the justification of the weak and powerless coming to terms with the cards life has dealt them. Forgiveness and reconciliation can only ever occur once justice has been served. In this sense, it is hard-nosed. The light of truth shone into dark places where sometimes we’d rather remain hidden, is the only hope for the possibility of recompense. Polanski’s crime, and a crime it was, is not something to be swept under the carpet of time, or artistic success, or other contributions that he may have made. We may well hope for compassion for him at the appropriate time. But he has not faced justice, and therefore cannot truly move beyond the stain of what transpired in a Hollywood home all those years ago. Simon Smart (We ask that you please keep all comments to 200 words or less)
Professor Simon Conway-Morris will give a public lecture this Monday 21st Sept in Sydney. Details here (We ask that you please keep all comments to 200 words or less)
Although harsh reality had long replaced those dreams by the time I was 17, my Dad, no doubt remembering his boy’s early romance with all things NASA took me to hear a speech by Jim Irwin, an astronaut who spent three days on the moon in 1971. Irwin’s mission famously involved the use of the moon buggy for the first time. During the address, given in a bowling club in a country town in New South Wales, which must have seemed galaxies away from space travel glory for Irwin, he told a story I never forgot. He described a profound moment standing on the moon, and looking back at earth. Closing one eye, Irwin held up his thumb and covered the entire planet—every mountain, every city, every person, every valley, every ocean. All under his thumb. Irwin said it made him feel terrifyingly small. He went on to suggest that most of the astronauts involved in those early days of space walks and moon visits, had either become Christians, or gone mad: the experience was so overwhelming. Irwin himself had a long held belief and faith that he said was only deepened and enriched by the adventure. Today, on the 40th anniversary of the first landing on the moon, I read that Buzz Aldrin took communion before making that short, bold walk into history. After the lunar landing, Aldrin radioed back to earth, “This is the LM pilot. I’d like to take this opportunity to ask every person listening in, whoever and wherever they may be, to pause for a moment and contemplate the events of the past few hours and to give thanks in his or her own way.” Then in the silence surrounding him, Aldrin quietly read from John’s gospel, ‘I am the vine, you are the branches. Whosoever abides in me will bring forth much fruit. Apart from me you can do nothing,’ before taking in bread and wine that he’d brought specially for the occasion. In this moment of astonishing human achievement, Aldrin clearly felt his own helplessness and dependence on the creator—the one who the bible claims “stretches out the heavens like a canopy … who brings out the starry host one by one, and calls them each by name.” (We ask that you please keep all comments to 200 words or less)
Joyce’s writing is a wrestle between authority and freedom, reality and imagination, conformity and sensual play. In Ulysses, he toys with the seriousness of history by reconstructing it within the apparent silliness and unimportance of one man’s day about Dublin. No big epic, just little domestic duties, he seems to say. But the impulse behind this comedy is in fact a deeply serious one. Joyce was distressed about God, death and love, and his writing is a response to that distress. “How I hate God and death! How I like Nora!” Joyce wrote as a young man who was angry with religion and with mortality, and longed for deep, intimate connection with another—his future wife, Nora. Some of Joyce’s tensions would be addressed by a more biblical, less ‘churchy’ and institutional, understanding of the Christian faith that is primarily about relationship with God; that celebrates the goodness that can be found in this life; that is a fan of good sex, good food, good friends, good fun. Authentic Christianity is about God befriending sinners, best demonstrated through the life of Jesus. It’s about God’s love for us, even as we hate him—a teaching that even the most ‘sensual and silly’ of characters needs to take seriously. For a stick-figure animated summary of the story, click here (We ask that you please keep all comments to 200 words or less) |
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