Is Modernity Bad For You?

"Part of the enthralling promise of an age of reason was, at least at first, the prospect of a genuinely rationale ethics, not bound to the local or tribal customs of this people or that, not limited to the moral precepts of any particular creed, but available to all reasoning minds regardless of culture and - when recognized - immediately compelling to the rational will. Was there ever a more desperate fantasy than this? We live now in he wake of the most monstrously violent century in human history, during which the secular order (on bother he political right and the political left), freed form the authority of religion, showed itself willing to kill on an unprecedented scale and with an ease of conscience worse than merely depraved. If ever an age deserved to be thought an age of darkness, it is surely ours. One might almost be tempted to conclude that secular government is the one form of government that has shown itself too violent, capricious, and unprincipled to be trusted."

I've been reading David Bentley Hart's new book 'Atheist Delusions' and I have thoroughly enjoyed it so far. Hart does hold back in this book, and often attacks the New Atheists with all guns blazing (which can be quite amusing). This is a book about history and ideology: Hart wants to set the record straight on the the way the New Atheists use and abuse history, and defends the the history of the medieval and early church [on which he brings a unique perspective given his Eastern Orthodox roots]. He is also totally scathing of the ideology underpinning the New Atheists, particularly modernity and The Enlightenment. According to Hart, the failures of Western civilization lie in the disintegration of Christendom in the 16th Century when the influence of the Church was replaced by the modern Nation-State:

"The savagery of triumphant Jacobinism, the clinical heartlessness of classical social eugenics, the Nazi movement, Stalinism - all the grand Utopian projects of the modern age that have directly or indirectly spilled such oceans of human blood - are no less the results of the Enlightenment myth of liberation than are the liberal democratic state or the vulgarity of late capitalist consumerism or the pettiness of bourgeois individualism. The most pitilessly and self-righteously violent regimes in modern history - in the West or in those other quarters of the world contaminated by our worst ideas - have been those that have most explicitly cast off the Christian vision of reality and sought to replace it with a more 'human' set of values. No cause in history - no religion or imperial ambition or military adventure - has destroyed more lives with more confident enthusiasm than the cause of the 'brotherhood of man,' the post religious utopia, or the progress of the race. To fail to acknowledge this would be to mock the memory of all those millions that have perished before the advance of secular reason in its most extreme manifestations. And all the astonishing violence of the modern age - from the earliest European wars of the emergent nation-state onward - is no less proper an expression (and measure) of the modern story of human freedom than are the various political and social movements that have produced the moderns west's special combination of general liberty, material abundance, cultural mediocrity, and spiritual poverty. To fail to acknowledge this would be to close our eyes to the possibilities for evil that have been opened p in our history by the values we most dearly prize and by the 'truths' we most fervently adore." - D.B. Hart, Atheist Delusions, 2009.

Romans as a Wordle

[CLICK ON THE IMAGE TO ENLARGE]

These are the most frequent words Paul uses in his letter to the Roman Church (using the NRSV). Any surprises?

Wordle is a toy for generating “word clouds” from text that you provide. The clouds give greater prominence to words that appear more frequently in the source text.

Hans Kung on Priestly Celibacy

"Since the Second Vatican Council in the 60s, many [Roman Catholic] episcopal conferences, pastors and believers have been calling for the abolition of the medieval prohibition of marriage for priests, a prohibition which, in the last few decades, has deprived almost half of our parishes of their own pastor. Time and again, the reformers have run into Ratzinger's stubborn,uncomprehending intransigence. And now these Catholic priests are expected to tolerate married, convert priests alongside themselves. When they want themselves to marry, should they first turn Anglican, and then return to the church?"

Hans Kung on the Roman offer to Anglo-Catholics.

International GIS Day

This week is Geography Awareness Week, and today (November 18) in particular is International GIS Day.

You're first reaction to this might be "What is GIS?". According to wikipedia: "In simplest terms, GIS is the merging of cartography and database technology." I only know because I'm married to someone who once regaled with stories about GIS fun at uni. Alison now uses GIS regularly at work and was so excited about today that she baked a cake.

Anyway, all of this was kind of a rationale for me to post this classic clip from The West Wing about maps:



UPDATE: Here is Alison's post on International GIS Day

Guest Post: Foray Into Media-Land

A syndicated guest post by Alison Moffitt

My department has been working on a report for the last couple of months that was released to the media on Tuesday (November 10) as part of Anglicare's Christmas appeal launch. It's the first time that I have ever written something for the public, and even though very few people outside of the industry will read it, it was still kind of cool to have something out there that was covered in the news for a fleeting moment.

The report was an update on a larger report my co-workers put together in June. It was an analysis of trends among people who access emergency relief services from Anglicare - the kind of help that comes in the form of emergency financial assistance for people who are really struggling to pay bills and buy food. The previous report identified that

- single mothers
- indigenous people
- people in public housing
- people who lived alone

were massively overrepresented.

It also called for a better emergency relief model. Many single mothers, indigenous people, single person households and people in public housing struggle with many other social and financial issues that can't be addressed by giving them a food hamper or paying off an occasional electricity bill. The government currently only funds organisations like Anglicare for this kind of assistance. When emergency relief staff spend time helping people negotiate centrelink or helping people access counselling services, parenting classes, drug and alcohol programs, budgeting classes or anything that isn't a financial transaction, the organisation has to subsidise it themselves.

Our update happened because we got an extra 5 months of data which helped us see how the global financial crisis impacted on these people. Firstly, there were more of them. The demand for services increased, although we couldn't actually help many more people because we were already operating at capacity. The same sorts of people were accessing services but, they were coming with different problems. Many many more people were coming because they were having trouble securing housing, and many many more were presenting with unemployment.

If you want to check out the report, you can find it here.

If you are more of a visual person, you can look at the wordle instead:


So on Tuesday, the report was made public, there were media releases and the report was covered by both Fairfax and News Limited with an identical story, although different headlines (having taken the story from AAP). I'm not sure how that works. This is my first experience like this, but somehow I wasn't surprised when the reports were dramatically incorrect. I am never complaining about poor journalism in the Sydney Anglican newspaper ever again. It has nothing on this. They just copied and pasted extracts of the Anglicare media release, and then got creative. They changed 'increased' to 'rocketed' and pulled out the biggest stats they could find from the media release. They also made up something about increasing requests for counselling and family services, even though (as I just mentioned) the only data we had was for people coming to financial assistance, and the media release was pretty straightforward about that. It's making me suspicious of most of what I have ever read in the newspapers.

This post is also available here.

Karl Barth on Refugees

Commenting in October 1942 on the refugee crisis facing Switzerland, Karl Barth had this to say:

"The refugees are our concern: not because they are good and valuable people, but because they are today the lowest, the most wretched people in the whole world and as such they knock on our doors, [and because their] inseparable companion is the Saviour. They are our concern: not although they are Jews, but precisely because they are Jews and as such are the Saviour's physical brothers...The refugees (whether they know it or not) are honouring us by seeing our land as a last refuge of justice and mercy, and by coming to it...We see in the refugees that which we have been miraculously spared of. It is certainly true today we are not doing all that well either. But again, it is also true that we are at least taken pretty good care of, and are taken such good care of that we are rich in comparison to these unhappy people. Can we bear this without wanting to help them with all our might."

This was at a time when the Swiss border was completely sealed off from Jewish refugees. Although many made it into Switzerland, over 100,000 refugees were rejected by the Swiss authorities during the Second World War. I won't comment on the current refugee situation in Australia, except to point to two excellent posts by Meredith Lake here and here.

Bonhoeffer: Church and Community

"Since I as a Christian cannot live without the church, since I owe my life to the church and now belong to it, so my merits are no longer my own but belong to the church. Only because the church lives one life in Christ, as it were, can I as a Christian say that the chastity of others helps me when my desires tempt me, that the fasting of others benefits me, and that the prayers of my neighbours is offered in my stead" ~ Bonhoeffer, Sanctorum Communio, p. 183.

h/t Alex

Free for Their Full Humanity

Rowan Williams recently had this to say on the foundation of CMS:

"Those who founded the [Church Missionary] Society were close to those who fought against the slave trade in the British Empire and also those who were working for better conditions for working people in England. They were concerned, troubled and angry that working people in England and slaves in the British Empire could not truly experience their own full humanity. And so their missionary activity was always connected with the concern to set people free for their full humanity." - Rowan Williams

The Eclectic Society was a remarkable group of men. They founded CMS, fought for better working conditions in Great Britain, fought against the slave trade in the British Empire, and ensured a Christian chaplaincy to the new colony in New South Wales. They wanted to liberate people from a life that was thoroughly dehumanizing. But they also had a deeper motivation: to see the Christian faith spread and for people to know real humanity, the "measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ" (Eph 4.13).

Exit Strategy

This interesting article was in The Guardian on Wednesday.

A former prostitute is challenging the idea that only some sex workers are forced into the industry:

By the age of six, Beverly Carter was being sexually abused by immediate members of her family, who then used her to provide paid-for sex to outsiders – leading to a 30-year stretch of prostitution. Despite eventually reporting the abuse to doctors, she says she wasn't helped and began to use alcohol and drugs – including slimming pills, cannabis and crack cocaine – to fill the painful void.

Today, aged 47, Carter is free from alcohol and drugs and prostitution, citing a 12-step drugs programme and a conversion to Christianity as her turning points. "For me, a holistic approach to rehabilitation is what helped," she explains. "Prostituted women need to deal with all areas of their lives in order to get free – mind, body, soul, spirit and, most importantly, the deeper levels of emotions."

You can read more here.

Anglicanism's Mid Life Crisis

Has a denomination ever had as much trouble understanding it's identity as the Anglican church has? Every few months there seems to be a new book released either articulating what Anglicanism looks like (i.e. Tom Frame, Bruce Kaye), or commenting on the current crisis in the Anglican Communion (i.e. Oliver O'Donovan). One only needs to briefly scan one of the many blogs searching for an Anglican identity (such as hebel; also this and this) to see how widespread the quest is.

At the centre of the current crisis in the Anglican Communion is a question of scripture and authority. But what is at stake are opposing visions of what the Anglican Church should look like. The crisis, which has rages for several decades now (the main crisis vis-a-vis scripture and authority has stayed the same even the issues have changed, i.e. woman's ordination, homosexuality), can be interpreted as one front of the cultural wars that have raged since at least the end of the second world war. However, I want to suggest that there are several other reasons operating here.

Anglican identity has historically been in flux. Whilst there has always been a solid evangelical (reformed, protestant) core that has sought to define Anglicanism by the Articles of Religion, The Book of Common Prayer and Ordinals, and the Homilies (the Anglican Church League in Sydney was founded a century ago to persevere these things), there have always been other "factions" (i.e. Anglo-Catholics) that have nuanced the Anglican identity. The Tudor and Stuart periods are the classic example of this, where Anglican identity would vary according to how sat on the throne of England. The emergence of liberalism from the 18th Century has only increased the divergence of and competition for Anglican identity. The variegated historical experiences of Anglicanism since the 16th century continue to challenge our assumptions of Anglicanism today.

Naturally, related to this is the theological breadth of Anglicanism. It is often said that the genius (and frustration) of Anglicanism is that is both catholic and protestant, it holds the middle ground. But the challenge of walking the tight-rope of the via media is not to sway too far to one side or the other. Even then we have to realize that neither side is a homogeneous unit (i.e. the variances amongst contemporary Anglican evangelicals). "Anglican theology" has always had a polemic streak to it. The Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral (a founding document for the formation of the Anglican Communion) aimed at restoring unity with other churches with the episcopacy (Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodoxy), whilst providing a stumbling block for protestant churches with other forms of church government.

The polemics in Anglican theology have become more and more pointed in the past 50 years: Evangelicals v Anglo-Catholics v Liberals (v Charismatics?). The spread of Anglicanism through mission has changed the face of Anglicanism forever. The Church of England may still be established in England and considered by some to be the "mother church" (with the Primate of All England being the symbolic head of Anglicanism worldwide). The American and Canadian Episcopal Churches may still be the wealthiest churches in the communion. But the spread of the gospel on the coat tails of the British Empire through mission agencies such as CMS has resulted in Africa, Asia and Latin America having the largest populations of Anglicans in the world. Although the traditional realms of Anglicanism (England and North America) are still quite influential, but Anglicanism today is being the defined by the churches in the Global South. As you may know, the churches of the Global South are closer to what I have described central core of Anglicanism (protestant, reformed, evangelical and catholic) than the Anglican Church in North America.

These three factors, history, theology and mission, have not caused the crisis in identify. But they are crucial in understanding the struggle to define Anglicanism. Already we are seeing some answers to question of scripture and authority. One proposal is to strengthen the organisational structures of the Anglican world, particularly the instruments of communion. At this stage the success of this approach seems quite unlikely. I feel as though to define Anglicanism structurally is to miss the point. The past century has provided several examples of valid forms of Anglicanism that are out of step with the communion (i.e. The Church of England in South Africa).

Long gone are the days when you could walk into any Anglican Church in world and roughly understand what was happening. But the end of a common liturgy etc. does not spell the end of Anglicanism.

I am not a prophet nor the son of prophet, but the future of Anglicanism would appear to lie with GAFCON. This is a difficult process. It is also tremendously exciting as it offers a reinvigorated Anglican identity that is built on the central core of Anglicanism I have previously identified (protestant, reformed, evangelical and catholic) that is also truly global. It is an expression of church that will, Lord willing, continue to proclaim his life, death and resurrection until he returns.

Photos from the GAFCON website.

Destination Cambodia

I wrote this for a CMS handout distributed at the Sydney Diocese synod last night for mission hour.

‘Come and help us in leadership training!’

This is the most common request to CMS from partner churches across the globe. In many locations, the need for leadership training far outstrips the ability of the local church to provide it, and so many church leaders aren’t well trained to build up God’s people or to reach out to the lost. Dave and Leoni Painter, along with fellow CMS missionaries Rolf and Bonnie Lepelaar, have been teaching at the Phnom Penh Bible School in Cambodia and are involved in training future leaders of the church.

The Cambodian church was decimated in the 1970s under the Khmer Rouge regime, and then during the civil war that followed in the 1980s. Out of a total population of 8 million, over a million Cambodians died from executions, overwork, starvation and disease. And only 16% of all the Christians in Cambodia before the Khmer Rouge came to power survived this terrible period.

The killing and upheaval ended in 1991, and has been followed by a period of rapid economic development and reconstruction. The church has also grown dramatically since then, with churches planted in each of Cambodia’s provinces. However, Cambodia remains one of the poorest countries in the world. Many Cambodians also live in fear of evil spirits and bad karma, and struggle with the array of social problems that plague Cambodian life.

The growth of the Cambodian church presents new challenges. In 1999 there were over 300 evangelical churches, with more than one church starting each week. But there is a great need for mature leadership. The loss of so many educated people in the Khmer Rouge slaughter, and in the social turmoil the Khmer Rouge left in its wake, pushed many new Christians into leadership before they were ready for it. Often, the first person to become a Christian in a Cambodian village will be made the church pastor for their village – without any training, and before they have developed Christian maturity.

CMS responds to this great need for theological education and ministry training by sending faithful and well equipped servants, such as the Painters and Lepelaars, to build up and develop local leadership. By mentoring and teaching theological students and pastors in Cambodia, a foundation is being laid for the future of the church in that country.

Follow Those Links

Andrew has a great series on 'The Synoptic Gospels and the Nature of Scripture'.

Meredith asks 'Is Jesus a Greenie?' and 'Does Australia Have a Theological Temperament?'

Byron articulates a thesis question. And Tim explains his.

Chris ponders the relevance of Jesus.

Jeremy explains the Tour de France.

Steve blogs on living with evil.

The Pilgrims Podcast provide some fantastic interviews and resources on pastoral care.

Mike W discusses the Torah and Psalms.

Michael J discusses 'Music in the 21st Century'.

Michael K blogs on the 2009 Sydney Anglican synod.

A summary of O'Donovan's The Desire of the Nations.

A theology of pipe smoking.

The NT Wright Project contemplates the humanity of Jesus.

UPDATE 1: Philip Jenkins has just published a new book on the Christological and Trinitarian battles of the 5th Century: The Jesus Wars - How Four Patriarchs, Three Queens, and Two Emperors Decided What Christians Would Believe for the Next 1,500 Years. h/t Greg Clarke.

UPDATE 1a: The Social Issues Executive have a funky new website.

Swimming Up The Tiber

The Roman Catholic church this week has announcemed that it has created a structure to welcome home 'traditional' Anglicans unhappy with the 'rampant liberalism' (ACL) in the Anglican church. Whether this will have the apocalyptic consequences for the Church of England that The Times says it does remains to be seen (Ruth Glendhill talks about this leading to the disestablisment of the CofE, and reclaiming of churches and cathedrals by Roma Catholics “'stolen' from them at the Reformation'). Oliver O'Donovan, commenting on the nineteenth article in the 39 Articles of Religon ("so also the Church of Rome hath erred..."), had this to say on ecumenism and institutional unity:

"Ecumenism is one of the ways in which the institutions of the church must be shaped and re-shaped to express the truth of the church itself more adequately than they do. But, of course, not any form of institutional unity will be appropriate. It must be a kind of unity which corresponds to the unity which the Holy Spirit gives, a unity which can comfortably embrace the diversities of gifts, operations and services within the united confession that 'Jesus is Lord'. Unity of the wrong kind will fail, just as disunity fails, to make the church institutions an effective sign of the gospel." - Oliver O'Donovan, On The Thirty Nine Articles - A Conversation With Tudor Christianity, 1986.

CPX interview Miroslav Volf

The folks at the Centre for Public Christianity have interviewed theologian Miroslav Volf. "A victim of intense and sustained interrogation by the government of then communist Yugoslavia, Volf's work focuses on forgiveness and reconciliation and remembering wrongs sustained in the past. He maintains that the Christian vision of the world entails the possibility of overcoming the past for both the victim and the perpetrator of wrongs." He is described by Rowan Williams as "one of the most celebrated theologians of our day". You can watch part one of the interview (on forgiveness) below:





Part I The Gift of Forgiveness

Part II Loving Enemies - dangerous and absurd

Part III - Justice, Christianity and Reconciliation

Part IV - Religion and Violence

Part V - Faith, Community and Identity

Southern Cross Letter II

Here is the letter that, as I mentioned previously, has been published in the October edition of Southern Cross.*


Ridley College’s Peter Adam has found himself at the centre of a nation-wide controversy. Peter Adam was in Sydney on 10 August as a guest of the Baptist Union of NSW/ACT to deliver the second annual John Saunders Lecture at Morling College. His lecture, Australia – Whose Land?, gained national attention with a carefully crafted and well considered analysis of the treatment of Indigenous Australians. It was a fine example of bringing Christian ethics to a significant national issue. For Sydney Anglicans it provides several avenues for thought and action.

It was a lecture that pulled no punches. Adam called for Australian Christians, and the wider Australian community, to repent and make just recompense for past wrongs. The wrongs, or sins, that Adam had in mind were the theft of Aboriginal land since 1788, and the large-scale murder and genocide that has accompanied it. What particularly caught the imagination of the media was Adam’s suggestion that all post-1788 arrivals in Australia should, in order to make recompense through restitution, offer to leave so the land can be returned to the Indigenous people. However, recognising how difficult this would be, Dr Adam’s suggestion was that if we can’t leave, we should make some form of recompense that would appropriately rectify the wrongs committed against indigenous people.

I won’t try to argue the practicality of Adam’s proposal. You should read the lecture, available on the Ridley College website. This is an important issue that requires serious thinking and action, and I’m really glad that Peter Adam has taken a lead on this issue. He has offered a vision for true reconciliation. Here are five steps we can take in response to Peter Adam’s comments:

1. We should repent. Repenting is the Christian thing to do. According to Dr Adam, while we may not have been personally involved in the dispossession of Aboriginal land and murder of Aboriginal people, we have all benefited from it. The land on which our homes, schools, workplaces and even our churches are built is land that indigenous Australians have unjustly been dispossessed of since 1788. We are effectively enjoying stolen property. Adam described this as a failure to treat those who are made in the image of God justly; a failure to love our neighbours as ourselves.


2. We also need to pray. It would be very easy to start working towards reconciliation. But mere activism is not Christian. We need to pray for wisdom for our church and its leaders to understand the issue at stake, we need to uphold our wronged Indigenous brothers and sisters in prayer, and we need to pray that we will have to strength and faith to respond in a way that gives God all glory.


3. We need to be informed and try to understand the gravity of what Indigenous people have suffered. The most moving part of the evening was after the lecture when people were invited to ask questions or make comments. Several Indigenous brothers and sisters spoke up, some in tears, and shared their experiences of being part of the stolen generation. They also expressed relief and excitement that the rest of the church, who they rightly described as “our brothers and sisters”, might finally recognise the issues they face. The Anglican Church must do more to understand the stories of Indigenous people within our churches and the wider Sydney community so that we can truly love and serve them. This will include taking up the pen and writing to our Governments. Advocating on behalf of our Indigenous brothers and sisters is one way that we can serve them.


4. Non-Indigenous Australian Christians must continue to minister to Indigenous Australians. This will involve continued support for the training of Aboriginal Christians in ministry and theology. There is an urgent need to develop Indigenous leaders in the church. Non-Indigenous Australian Christians must also take up the challenge of connecting with both Christian and non-Christian Indigenous Australians.


5. Perhaps it is time for the Anglican Church to discuss ‘acknowledging country’. This is different to a ‘welcome to country’. Acknowledgment of country is a statement of recognition of the traditional owners of the land. I’ve found one Sydney Anglican church that acknowledges country on their website. Should we have plaques at the entry to our church buildings acknowledging country? Should we do it at the start of major church gatherings, Synod, and the start of our conferences? It’s a difficult discussion to have, but that is by no means a reason not to start the debate.

God has called his people to be salt and light in the world. We should never shy away from seeking justice and showing mercy, even if it means speaking into a tense and complicated political issue. We follow a Lord whose humiliation and crucifixion have made him the head of a church where we know true love and reconciliation. It is tempting to assume that Kevin Rudd’s apology has ended the problems that Indigenous people face – it hasn’t.

Can I encourage you to listen to the case that Dr Adam has made and think about the ramifications it has for you, your church and the wider Christian community.



*Having tonight compared what I sent with what has been published, I have noticed that what is posted here and what appears in Southern Cross is slightly different.