What Big Questions might we ask?

Last week I watched a fascinating Virtual Veritas Forum, Coronavirus and Quarantine: What Big Questions can we be asking?



It brings together a range of perspectives. My only concern is that it is very USA-centric.

Springboarding off that discussion, here are some questions I hope will receive attention in the coming years.
A fascinating and challenging aspect of these questions is that they need to be addressed with multi-faceted and multi-disciplinary approaches. The crisis brings together issues that span microbiology, public health, mathematical modeling, psychology, sociology, economics, politics, ethics, philosophy, and theology.
Many of the questions need to be asked and discussed at multiple scales; e.g., by individuals, institutions, cities, nations, and globally.

Some of the questions have been grappled with by many smart people and societies for decades or even millennia. But, broader modern society often does not discuss them.

I list the questions in random order.

How do epidemics start, spread, and end?

How do we manage risk, balancing near certainties and ignorance?

How do governments balance the ``common good'' with protecting individual freedoms?

How do you balance medical, financial, economic, and social considerations in allocating resources to patients?

When is the ``medicine'' worse than the ``disease''?

How do you balance the future needs of the young with the current needs of the elderly?

Will the current chaos and uncertainty in the Western world make us more empathetic and willing to learn from those in the Majority World who live with such calamities on a regular basis?

What do such events reveal about human nature: values, morality, mortality, rationality, relationality?

How do you balance fear, despair, lament, hope, optimism?

Why does God allow suffering?

In what sense are calamities such as this a reflection of God's judgement? or of God's mercy?

What are appropriate responses (from the theological to the practical) of Christians to events such as this?

Why are we so afraid of death?

I welcome your own questions.

The Presence of the Kingdom by Jacques Ellul

Due to the coronavirus, we postponed this month's theology reading group. Many of us are over 60 and some have health conditions and so it is wise we do not meet in person. Nevertheless, we will try and have our first virtual meeting and discuss, The Presence of the Kingdom by Jacques Ellul.

Here I will just aim to provide a summary of what I think are some of the main ideas, largely for my own benefit. A better summary has been given by Tom Grosh.
Some excellent quotes from the book are here.

Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.  (Romans 12:2).

Chapter 1. The Christian in the World
Christians are called to be ``salt and light'' and influence the world in which they live. However, if they need to avoid abstractions but have a concrete engagement. But, the world has a ``will to death'' [i.e. it is intrinsically self-destructive].

Chapter 2. Revolutionary Christianity
``In order to preserve the world, it is actually necessary that a genuine revolution should take place.''
The world is hankering for revolution, whether from the political left or right. However, these proposed revolutions will be ineffective because they are largely about ``action'', contested ``facts'' [conceptions of reality?] and one group gaining power over another group which is ``evil.''
Christianity is truly revolutionary. Central to this is the ``style of life''.
Christians live in two cities [cf. Augustine], the city of man and the city of God. Everything has to viewed in light of the eschaton: the return of Jesus, the final judgment and establishment of the Kingdom of God.

Chapter 3. Ends and Means
In the world, people no longer debate whether the ends justify the means. Rather they are solely preoccupied with the means. An example is the world's obsession with `technique' (i.e. efficiency) and `progress'. For a Christian, the end is the Kingdom of God (Matthew 6:33).

Perhaps, Ellul would say that politics is not about working towards a particular vision of society, but rather solely about getting and keeping power. The modern economy is not about creating prosperity for the benefit of many, but rather just about making money (and more money) and getting possessions for the sake of it. In a communist society, it is all about the workers controlling the ``means of production'' and producing things.

Chapter 4. Problem of Communication
This concerns the role of the Christian intellectual. They need to engage with the lives of regular people in order to understand what is actually happening in the world (what is the reality?) and to communicate with them. Evaluation and understanding of the current `epoch' is central to the calling of the Christian intellectual.

Some general comments. I am really glad I read the book. However, it is at times heavy going and rambling. The first half of the book I read in the middle of the night a few times when I woke up and wanted to go back to sleep... I had to go back and reread a lot of the book. At times I felt it was rather abstract. Meanwhile, he ranted against abstractions, resisted being pinned down as to what ``action'' we should take and providing ``how to'' lists. At times, I felt he was a bit ``dogmatic'' and asserting that certain things were ``obvious''. Although, I agreed with his point of view I do not think this helps convince those who differ. In fairness, some of these concerns may be moderated by the difficulty of translation and of what was ``normal'' in French intellectual circles in the 1960s.

A Christian response to the coronavirus

I thought this short talk from Krish Kandiah was particularly helpful, engaging, challenging, and stimulating.

Reflections on the coronavirus crisis. I

I am a wealthy Westerner who has a comfortable and orderly life. But now I am experiencing minor inconveniences, such as limited travel, canceled events (will Liverpool still get to win the Premier League?), working from home, and a drop in the current value of my financial assets.

Like most people, I have been surprised, anxious, confused, and stressed by what is happening to the world. Here are a few preliminary thoughts on the things I am learning. Many are interrelated.

Perhaps I should not be surprised at this unexpected event.

 Let's take a historical perspective. Consider the twentieth century in the Western world. We made amazing scientific, medical, and technological advances.
However, there were also two World Wars, the Spanish flu epidemic (which killed more people than World War I), multiple stock market crashes, the great depression, natural disasters, terrorism, AIDS epidemic, the cold war, ..
Now, consider the first two millennia. It is even worse: an endless story of wars, earthquakes, famines, epidemics, ...
And then there is life in the Majority World today: chaos, instability, scarcity, disease, corruption, civil wars, epidemics, poverty, starvation, violence, ...
My predictable stable life of the affluent Westerner is not normal. It is a historic and geographic anomaly.

We are not in control as much as we think we are and wish we were.

Normally we have the luxury of making plans and setting goals: social events, travel, holidays, work, retirement, a medical check-up, shopping, ...

We are more interconnected than we may realise.

In the modern Western world, we pride ourselves on individual identity and individual freedom. I am the master of my destiny. I am defined by my achievements. If I succeed that is because I worked hard and used my extraordinary abilities. I deserve to enjoy the fruits of my success, and not others. I should be able to do what I want. I can choose my friends, my family, my work, my hobbies... It is all about me!
The coronavirus pandemic brings home just how interconnected the globalised economy has become; from international air travel (rapidly spreading the virus) to industrial supply chains.
There are merits to individual freedom, meritocracies, and individual initiative. However, the coronavirus is a rude interruption that things are not quite that simple. We do depend on others, for better and for worse, far more than we may like to admit. Our health depends on the health of others. Our economic well being does too. I am not the master of my destiny.

One response: selfishness
Many of us have responses to the crisis such as the following. Will I get sick? Well, even if I do I am young and healthy so it will be just like the flu. Will I lose my job? Will I still graduate from college this year? How much money have I lost on the stock market? Can I get a refund on my travel bookings? Is the government going to save my company? What about my social life?
In Australia we have people hoarding toilet paper, even fighting other customers. We have people with minor colds abusing hospital staff who will not test them for the virus because of limited resources. Political and business leaders are doing cold calculations of how certain actions they take may hurt or benefit them personally. Adversity can bring out the worst in us. It reveals a dark side to our nature.

Another response: fear
This is scary. On many levels. The future is uncertain. Will things get worse? How much worse? This can lead to panic and over-reacting. This reflects itself in hoarding toilet paper, panic selling of shares, believing rumours, ...

Another response: denial 
It isn't really that bad. We can handle it. We have the best medical system in the world. It is no worse than regular flu. Things will soon blow over. Let's wait and see what happens and not take drastic measures.

Another response: love, concern, and sacrificial service
Adversity can also bring out the best in us. Thinking beyond ourselves. Caring for others. Doctors and nurses who work to exhaustion. Some get sick. Some die. All in order to save the lives of others.

The desires of our hearts are revealed
We often hide from others (and ourselves) our inner self; what we really value, want, and think. Calamities can reveal our priorities and values. What are we most upset or worried about? Is it health, the economy, individual freedoms, our stock portfolio, ..?

Who will suffer the most?
Wealthy Western countries are ill-equipped with the medical resources to deal with this epidemic. Majority World countries will particularly struggle due to their extremely limited medical resources. As usual, the poor, the marginalised, the sick, the weak, and the elderly, will suffer the most, both in the short term and the long term.

There are invisible realities.
It is pretty amazing. We cannot see the virus. We don't know if we have it or someone else does or if it is on a doorknob. [I know that you can see it with an electron microscope and that there are medical tests for it]. However, in everyday life the virus is invisible. But it is a reality; one that has serious implications for everything, not just our health, but even for our close relationships, for the global economy, and for politics.
In spite of all that scientists do know about viruses (which is pretty amazing!) we currently know little about key properties of this virus and the associated epidemic: exactly how it spreads, which individuals are more likely to carry it, incubation periods, who is most at risk, .... We do not have a vaccine.

All this ignorance should humble us and make us open to the possibility that there are many things we do not understand in our lives now. Further, we should be open to other realities that we may be oblivious to, poorly understand, or have important implications for our lives. The Bible claims that there are spiritual realities; we cannot see them directly. Nevertheless, the spiritual realm does exist and has important implications for every part of our lives.

A time for re-evaluation
Our worlds are being turned upside down. What will we learn from this experience, both individually and collectively? Will we change? Or will we go back to ``normal''?

In some future posts, I hope to look at how Jesus engages with some of these issues.

Embracing contradictions

This month for the theology reading group we are looking at The Presence of the Kingdom by Jacques Ellul.
I was keen to read an Ellul book because of interest stimulated by a devotional book, that springboards off Ellul, that had a big influence on me. [The book is written by Charles Ringma who hosts the theology reading group.].

Many, including Ellul himself, consider this is the first Ellul book that people should read.
The second edition has a very helpful introduction by Daniel Clendenin.
He states ``Perhaps the single most important factor for Ellul interpretation is an understanding of his passionate adherence to dialectic".
Ellul states ``dialectic is a procedure that does not exclude contraries, but includes them.''
Here Ellul's approach has similarities to that of two large influences on his thinking: Karl Marx in sociology and Karl Barth in theology.
Ellul states that in the Bible, ``we constantly see two contradictory, apparently irreconcilable things affirmed, and we are told that they always meet to wind up in a new situation.'' Concrete and important examples include the following:

• God is beyond time and history. But he enters both through the incarnation of Jesus.
• We live in the ``Now but Not Yet'' of the Kingdom.
• Salvation is by grace alone but cannot be divorced from works.

There are also many others in the teachings of Jesus, such as ``the first will be last; the last will be first.''

Ellul presents a dialectic of social reality, where tension exists in five ways:

• ideology versus reality
• action and consequences
• the whole and the parts    [cf. emergence!]
• social and spiritual
• radical ambivalence of action

Sociology and theology present a critical counterpoint (dialogue partner) for one another.
Here there are certain parallels to John Stott's concept of  ``double listening.''

The fascinating world of John Milton

Recently at Theology on Tap, Ben Myers gave a fascinating talk, Poetry and Truth: What John Milton means to me, focusing on Milton's classic poem, Paradise Lost. One measure of the success of a talk such as this is that it inspires the audience to go and read the original work. Ben certainly did this.

     The illustration is The Temptation and Fall of Eve by William Blake.

I did not know that Milton worked closely with Oliver Cromwell, who I find to be a scary figure. Milton wrote Paradise Lost towards the end of his life when he was blind, under house arrest, and after a tragic personal life where his first two wives died in childbirth. The dreams he had for an English government that was not shackled to the crown, and the church was not shackled to the state were dashed.
He knew that something was wrong with the world.
He took the story of Genesis 1-3 and creatively filled in the gaps to create an epic poem, now considered to be one of the greatest pieces of English literature ever.
Each of the 12 books begins with a summary. The summary for book 9 illustrates the creativity of Milton.

The only contemporary of Milton that is mentioned in the poem, is Galileo, who Milton did meet in person. The meeting is depicted in the painting above.

Satan's shield is compared to the moon seen through the telescope of the ``Tuscan artist.''

He scarce had ceas’t when the superior FiendWas moving toward the shore; his ponderous shieldBehind him cast; the broad circumferenceHung on his shoulders like the Moon, whose OrbThrough Optic Glass the Tuscan Artist viewsAt Ev’ning from the top of Fesole,Or in Valdarno, to descry new Lands,Rivers or Mountains in her spotty Globe.

An interesting blog post, Milton and Galileo: Affinities between art and science, by Brigitte Nerlich states:

Many articles have been written about Milton and the telescope but I only want to quote from one by Marjorie Nicolson (1935): which claims that Milton never forgot the experience of looking through a telescope and seeing new worlds on the moon. This, she says, “is reflected again and again in his mature work; it stimulated him to reading and to thought; and it made Paradise Lost the first modern cosmic poem, in which a drama is played against a background of inter-stellar space”. 

The encounter with Galileo and the telescope left in fact many traces in Paradise Lost: “each of Galileo’s most famous discoveries is reflected in one or more passages in the epic. Among them are the countless newly sighted stars (7. 382-84), the nature of the Milky Way (7. 577-81), the phases of the planet Venus (7.366), the four newly discovered moons around Jupiter (8.148-51), the new conception of the moon (7. 375-78), the nature of moon spots (1. 287-9; 5. 419-20; 8. 145-48), and the nature of sun spots (3. 588-90)”. (Hunter, A Milton Encyclopedia, vol. 3, p. 120-121).