The Mediator of Faith

Here Marilynne Robinson talks about the role of theology in forming peoples minds and lives.

"Theology has been the mediator of the primary literature of faith since antiquity. The writers of the psalms, the prophets, the Apostle Paul all interpret core belief--that God is One, the Creator of heaven and earth, and that he has made humankind in his image. Augustine, Chrysostom, Aquinas, Luther and Calvin each gave intellectual, social and artistic form to modes of Christian life which without them are hardly to be imagined. Lately the practice of this ancient tradition has receded into the academy and learned the idiom of specialization, leaving religion increasingly vulnerable to the charge, and the fact, of vacuousness." - Marilynne Robinson

Global Warming - What Global Warming?

Colder summers and winters disprove global warming right? Wrong, as Byron explains here. And this is why climate change in Europe is affecting your summer in Australia:

To Live a Christ-formed life...

...is to flourish as a human being, argues Miroslav Volf.

The REAL Facebook World

On Wednesday I posted a map showing the connections of Facebook friends around the world. Whilst facebook's coverage seemed quite extensive, there where lots of areas that weren't lit up. You might assume that there is no people in there - no Facebook no people right? I'm pretty sure Africa and Asia have substantial numbers of people. So here is another map that sets Facebook's spread in context. What you get is a view of where social networks other than Facebook like Orkut and RenRen lead the market:

h/t Alison

Advent: A Haiku

This haiku was written by Richard Bauckham to complement an Advent Calendar. The sequence is that of the twenty-four biblical books in the Hebrew Bible. These verses are haiku in form (5-7-5 syllables), but not content.

Day 1 - Genesis
After paradise
not even Lot's wife looks back.
Memory turns round.

Day 2 - Exodus
The bones of Joseph
in their gilt sarcophagus
travel night and day.

Day 3 - Leviticus
If she is too poor
to afford a sheep, she may
offer two pigeons.

Day 4 - Numbers
Dawn in my distance,
the wise watchers will see him,
star of their searching.

Day 5 - Deuteronomy
Moses from Pisgah
overviews all. It is not
space but time he lacks.

Day 6 - Joshua
Going over Jordan
Joshua above all sees
that the ark goes first.

Day 7 - Judges
Said the trees to the
bramble, 'Come, be our ruler!'
'Wait!' said the mustard.

Day 8 - Samuel
Hannah, drunk as an
apostle at Pentecost,
magnifies the Lord.

Day 9 - Kings
She came with riddles.
His more than answers more than
took her breath away.

Day 10 - Isaiah
In the wilderness
a voice cries for centuries
seeking an echo.

Day 11 - Jeremiah
Rachel refuses
to be comforted - even
when we turn the page.

Day 12 - Ezekiel
In the end it is
all in the name of the city:
The Lord is there.
Day 13 - The Twelve Prophets
Then, as before, will
Bethlehem bear the shepherd
of the scattered sheep.

Day 14 - Psalms
If there were glory
only, praise like the last psalms,
would that be the end?
Day 15 - Proverbs
Too clever by half
are the foolish. The wise know
the folly of God

Day 16 - Job
God answered Job but
not his question. Maybe he
will do that again.

Day 17 - Song of Solomon
Yes, he will haste like
a gazelle. Nothing is more
impatient than love.

Day 18 - Ruth
Tough old Naomi
bounces a child on her knee -
her wild hope come home.

Day 19 - Lamentations
Jerusalem hurls
her desperate hopes against
God's forgetfulness.

Day 20 - Ecclesiastes
Whatever God does
and whoever else may be
who knows? The wise wait.

Day 21 - Esther
Probability
counts for nothing when Esther's
G-d is in the plot.

Day 22 - Daniel
Nebuchadnezzar
dreams of the doom of despots
and the wide world wakes.

Day 23 - Ezra-Nehemiah
After the exile
returnees did not look back
more than could be helped.

Day 24 - Chronicles
Adam, Seth, Enoch,
Noah, Abraham, David,
Zerubbabel ...

The Facebook World

From Visualizing Friendships; h/t KrishK

To The Nations

"Jesus told his apostles to disciple all the nations. The way his words are often translated, “to make disciples of all nations”, allows for a misconception to arise. It is the nations that are to be discipled, baptized and taught, not merely individuals out of the nations. The gospel will heal the nations and in the book of Revelation the nations shall walk in the light of the glory of God and bring their treasures to the heavenly Jerusalem (Rev 21:24, 26; 22:2). This glorious result of the exaltation of the Messiah had been prophesied in the Old Testament (Isa 11:10, 12; 25:7; 49:6, 7; 52:15). All the nations, that is the peoples and their cultures, are to be Christianized by the knowledge of the triune God. Christ’s commission to his followers is to baptize the nations, to bring them under his leadership, as their Lord and their teacher." - D B Knox, D.Broughton Knox Selected Works Volume II - Church and Ministry; ed. K. Birkett p.277-282. h/t Michael

History is Precedent and Permission

"...[L]acking curiosity and the habit of study and any general grasp of history, we have entered a period of nostalgia and reaction. We want the past back, though we have no idea what it was. Things do not go so well for us as they once did. We feel we have lost our way. Most of us know that religion was once very important to our national life, and believe, whether we ourselves are religious or not, that we were much the better for its influence. Many of us know that Calvinism was a very important tradition among us. Yet all we know about John Calvin was that he was an eighteenth-century Scotsman, a prude and obscurantist with a buckle on his hat, possibly a burner of witches, certainly the very spirit of capitalism. Our ignorant parody of history affirms our ignorant parody of religious or 'traditional' values. This matters, because history is precedent and permission, and in this important instance, as in many others, we have lost plain accuracy, not to speak of complexity, substance, and human inflection. We want to return to the past, and we have made our past a demonology and not a human narrative." - Marilynne Robinson, Marguerite de Navarre, The Death of Adam, p. 206.

At the Margins of Morality

"The Church exists today as resident aliens, an adventurous colony in a society of unbelief."
- Hauerwas & Willimon, Resident Aliens, 1989, p. 49.

"The church in the West may have to get used to the idea that its own centre in God, from which it goes out to others in proclamation and compassion, is actually a position of social and cultural marginality. This may improve its witness to the Christ who was himself usually also found at the margins." - Bauckham, Mission as Hermeneutic, 2010, p. 7.

Chris recently blogged about Christianity being at the margins of society. As western society continues to sojourn further and further away from Christendom, the Church is decreasingly at the centre of society. The Church's social and political powerless position not only mirrors the first three centuries of Christian history; it also may help the Church be faithful to it's life and mission.

This is not an easy process for the Church. Not that it should be - we do follow a crucified Messiah. But of interest to me recently has been the way public perception has shifted when it comes to the Church and morality. Whereas once the Church was seen as a moral guardian of society (and it's members were mock for being wowsers and holy), it is now seen as an immoral, corrupting force on society. The Church - and Christians more generally - are seen to have started wars, indoctrinated children, thwarted intellectual progress and destroyed cultures the world over. The Church has constantly been on the back foot for at least the past 50 years over issues of sexuality; in debates in Australia and around the world, it is the Christians are portrayed as immoral and out of touch.

For the early church it was their refusal to observe their civic duties that landed them in hot water (sometimes literally). Like our brothers and sisters 2000 years ago, we find ourselves at the margins of morality. And like them, we are disciples of the same crucified and resurrected Lord. But what will it look like for us to cling to him in our own position of "social and cultural marginality"?

Photo: Alison Moffitt