Beauty, art, and mission

 Last night my wife and I watched Many Beautiful Things, a documentary about the extraordinary life of Lillias Trotter. It captures the beauty of her life and art and how she followed Jesus. The striking cinemaphotography gave a glimpse of the amazing ways that Trotter could see beauty in nature and then capture it in watercolours. Daily she wrote diary entries about her life and spiritual journey including ornate pictures of scenes and people she engaged with. She was independently wealthy and of frail health. She had artistic talent that could have led to her being the greatest English painter of her time, according to the judgement of John Ruskin (the leading English art critic of the 19th century). Yet, her desire to follow Jesus led her to care for destitute women in London and eventually women and children in Algeria. This choice was a great disappointment to Ruskin.

You can watch it for free on Youtube (with endless ads) or on RedeemTV without ads. I thank Tanglaw Roman for bringing it to my attention.

Where did money come from? Does it matter?

Does the historical origin of an idea, method, or system matter when considering how to respond to it?

Modern psychology began with Freud, whose personal life, ideas, and methods have received robust critiques. Does that mean modern psychology is flawed?

The administrative structures of many nations were built by colonialists. How is that relevant?

If something has Christian origins does that mean it is necessarily good? 

``Holy Money—A Brief History and Why It is So Complicated to Handle,'' is the title of Chapter 3 of  Money Matters: Faith, Life, and Wealth by R. Paul Stevens and Clive Lim.

They consider recent scholarship that argues that the origin of money was not the barter system but actually religion, Babylonian and Jewish, .. 

Caroline Humphrey’s definitive anthropological work on barter concludes. “No example of a barter economy, pure and simple, has ever being described, let alone the emergence from it of money; all available ethnography suggests that there never has been such a thing.”

The authors state (p. 40)

Money, since its beginning, has been a spiritual matter and was created within the temple for the sacred management of the temple. The earliest use of money was within a canopy of sacredness to moderate the wealth of the temple and to justly distribute goods among the residents of the city.

 Thus, "money has a soul". They continue.

Like all the “principalities and powers” named in the Bible (Eph. 6:12), money has a dark spiritual side. As we saw in the temple context, money demands devotion, devotion that should be rendered to God himself.

On the one hand, I found this chapter interesting.  My wife less so. But, I remain to be convinced that the issue of the origin of money is that crucial to developing a Christian response. 

In ancient life, whether Jewish, African, South Asian, or Babylonian, everything had a religious dimension, and much of life (food, family, politics, economics, warfare,...) was centred around temples. Some was pagan and evil. Some was good and promoted human flourishing. That is a long way from the world that the readers of this book live in.

Some, or even many readers, may find the chapter heavy going, and the momentum and interest build by the first two chapters may wane.

A theoretical physicist talks about his life journey

This is a wonderful video: funny, moving, and serious.

Shook: Dr. Ard Louis - Oxford University from Biblica on Vimeo.

Does our life experience shape our views on money and material wealth?

Money and material wealth are a big issue that society and churches, particularly in the Western world, need to grapple with. This is a significant issue for me personally as from a global perspective my wife and I are in the top one to ten percent, as are many of our friends in Australia and the USA. Many of our friends in the Majority World are in the majority, i.e. the lower 80 percent!

It is amazing how much Jesus talked about money. He talked about it as much as heaven and certainly more than about sex! Yet, there is not much open and honest discussion about the issue in churches, except for fundraising for (mostly) local budgets. As an aside, I acknowledge that in churches that promote Prosperity Theology (which I think is very dubious) money is talked about a lot.

I was very happy that the book for next month to be discussed in the theology reading group is Money Matters: Faith, Life, and Wealth by R. Paul Stevens and Clive Lim. I asked my wife to read it with me since I think it is so important for us.

In the first two chapters, each of the authors introduces themselves, describing their Christian journey, particularly as it relates to money. I am not normally a fan of such introductions. Sometimes they are a prelude to a book that largely reflects views that are solely shaped by the author's own experiences. Experience is used to interpret Scripture, rather than Scripture used to interpret experience. But, these stories are not just fascinating, honest, and vulnerable. They illustrate an important point.  We need to consider our own stories when we consider a Christian perspective on money and wealth. The two stories are also interesting because they are quite different: one is from the East and one from the West. One grew up in a Christian family and the other did not. Moreover, one grew up in a very poor family and eventually became quite wealthy. The other grew up quite wealthy and through following Jesus ended up with little money (by affluent Western standards). Why does this matter? Before telling his own story, Stevens states

Clive and I are telling our money stories because our attitude toward money is formed through many influences, not least our family education, our experience growing up and the influence of our culture. Sometimes the teaching of the church on money, whenever it happens, usually pales in significance before the overwhelming influence of the media, the culture and the family in which we grew up. There is precious little church teaching on the subject even though the Bible is chock full of it (except of course the teaching to give one tenth to the church). But we also saw in Clive’s story how our experience with money reveals a lot about ourselves. We get to know ourselves partly through our handling of money. What was also evident as Clive told his story is this: our relationship with God is partially shaped by our handling of money. And the reverse is also true: our faith influences our approach to money, especially our view of the kingdom of God.

Perhaps these reflections on the influence of our life experiences is also key to understanding our views on other issues such as sex, family life, church, and politics. Our experiences, and those of others, are influential, perhaps beyond more than we would like to acknowledge, but they should not be taken to be determinative.

Hopefully, this post will be the first of several that engage with separate chapters of the book. 

Other books I am keen to read and be in dialogue with include 

Missions as Money: Affluence as a Missionary Problem by Jonathon Bonk.

WHEN MONEY GOES ON MISSION: FUNDRAISING AND GIVING IN THE 21ST CENTURY Rob Martin

The multi-dimensional character of "science" and "religion"

We should pause before we dive into discussions that have names such as science and religion, science and the Bible, science versus faith, creation and evolution,  theology and science, Science and Christianity, ...

The words used often mean different things to different people, reducing communication, understanding, and meaningful dialogue. 

Previously, I have discussed how I prefer "science and theology" to "science and faith", particularly because science involves faith.

In Territories of Science and Religion, Peter Harrison shows how through history the nature of science and religion, and their boundaries, have been understood very differently from today.

With regard to both "science" and "religion" I suggest it may be helpful to consider four different dimensions: the life and experience of individuals, communities and institutions,  bodies of knowledge, and underlying realities.

I now expand on each of these four dimensions.

1. The life and experience of individuals

Professional scientists go to their laboratory, do experiments, write computer code, read journals, discuss with colleagues, and write articles and books. They do all this within a framework of a particular way of "thinking" and "doing". People who are not professional scientists also take on some elements of this "thinking" and "doing" with regard to their interactions with nature, technology, and others.

A "religious" person also has ways of "thinking" and "doing". This affects their beliefs, values, priorities, and behaviour.

In both science and religion we are talking about humans with all their potential, brilliance, creativity, honour, love, flaws, limitations, contradictions, and tragedy.

2. Communities and institutions

Science is not just an individual endeavour and individual experiences take place in the context of a community. Communication, collaboration, and consensus are essential. Over history, these scientific communities often evolve into institutions such as professional societies, research institutes, and university departments. (An institution is an entity that has the potential to endure beyond the lifetime of any of its current participants.)

Similarly, "religion" is manifest in communities such as home groups and local churches. They form based on commonalities of belief and practice. Over time such communities may evolve into institutions such as denominations, seminaries, universities, publishing houses, and mission organisations.

3. Bodies of knowledge

This concerns both the content of that body of knowledge and the methods that are used to gain that knowledge. Over time communities and institutions may produce new bodies of knowledge and usually engage significantly with prior knowledge. This is concrete information that is accessible (with enough education) to anyone and provides concrete things for investigation, interpretation, and discussion. The current state of knowledge is often recorded in "textbooks".

For science, these bodies of knowledge consist of (generally accepted) laws, theories, methods, and observations. Examples include the laws of thermodynamics, Einstein's theory of special relativity, the genetic code, protein structures, taxonomies of biological life forms, data bases, telescopes, radioactive dating, and computer codes.

Religion involves sacred texts, creeds, doctrines, and theologies. 

4. Underlying realities

The bodies of knowledge are believed by the communities to be the best possible representation of underlying realities. These realities reflect the absolute and objective truth, that exists independent of subjective human observers and interpreters.

For natural sciences the reality is the material world. For social sciences that reality is groups of people.

For Christianity, that reality is the triune God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit and the Creation (the material world in which we live).

Conflations of the different dimensions

Discussions of the true nature of science and of religion become confused or unhelpful when they conflate the four dimensions above. For example, many practicing scientists subscribe to a "naive" realism that conflates current scientific knowledge with objective reality. Advocates of the "sociology of knowledge" claim that science is nothing more than the communities and institutions of scientists. Some pentecostal Christians may conflate their own individual experience and intuition with the underlying reality of God and the Holy Spirit. Some conservative Christians may make a rigid identification of their own reading and understanding of the Bible (and/or the doctrines of their denomination) with the underlying reality of God.

The whole concept of "religion" is a construct of the Enlightenment. The academic approach of much "religious studies" is to define religion solely in terms of the beliefs and practices of individuals and communities. Sometimes it is claimed that all "religions" are in essence the same and all just different reflections of one underlying cosmic reality.

Now it becomes even more complex.

What are appropriate methods to relate science and religion?

Are the two in conflict, harmony, dialogue, complementary, or independent of one another? This is where considering the four distinct dimensions may be helpful. I suggest that there may be less confusion and the most insight to be gained when each is compared with respect to the same dimension.

For example, one can contrast and compare the life experiences of a scientist and of a follower of Jesus (possibly the same person). This is done very nicely in Let There Be Science by David Hutchings and Tom McLeish. These life experiences both involve very human experiences: faith, hope, pain, love, and suffering. There are many similarities and resonances. Hence, there is a strong and positive correlation, between the two spheres of science and religion.

If we consider the two bodies of knowledge, the nature of the dialogue and interaction, between science and religion may be quite different. The contents of a physics textbook and of the Bible do not have a lot in common. On the other hand, the relationship between the philosophical interpretation of the content of that textbook and of the Christian doctrine of creation is a rich and fruitful area to explore.

In summary, to have a meaningful discussion about science and religion, at least two things may be helpful. First, the respective dimensions of each that are being discussed need to be defined. Second, the discussion should focus on relating the same dimension in each. An exercise in contrasting and comparing may elucidate  similarities and differences.

I thank Charles Ringma for comments on Let There Be Science, that stimulated this post.

Finding order in the chaos of life

Life in this world often seems to be chaotic. Think of your experience of the weather, the economy, politics, and human relationships. It is hard to predict what will happen next. We yearn for order and sometimes seem to be able to create little oases of it, only to see them slip from our grasp. Sometimes things even seem to make sense; much of the time they don't. 

On the other hand, some claim there is a grand plan for the universe and it is all pre-determined. We just follow our destiny.

What is the relationship between order and chaos? Is the universe random or deterministic? Scientists have wrestled with these questions for centuries. How might different scientific views related to how the Bible addresses (or not) these questions?

I have enjoyed re-reading,  Let There Be Science: Why God Loves Science, and Science Needs God, by David Hutchings and Tom McLeish. This week we are discussing it in the theology reading group.  I think that this is the best introductory book I have encountered about the relationship between theology and science.

The questions above are nicely discussed in Chapter 6, entitled Order from Chaos. Here are some highlights.

chaotic systems are both predictable and random (p. 115)

The probabilistic approach shows us that order really can emerge from disorder (p. 118)

Theoretically predictable systems (can) collapse into randomness. Theoretically random systems coalesce into predictability. 

Is the future knowable, or not? It seems that science gives a rather unscientific answer: “sort of”. (p. 119)

Some related issues are discussed in posts I wrote a while back. 

The collective activity of many randomly moving actors can be effectively predictable, even if individual motions are not.

Random dynamics at one level can lead to deterministic dynamics at a higher level, and visa versa.

True randomness requires design. This is illustrated by the fact that it is very hard to make random number generators that are truly random.

Job struggled with the chaos of life. He lived a morally ordered life, yet he experienced chaos, reflected in his great suffering. He ranted at God.

Even if I summoned him and he responded, 

I do not believe he would give me a hearing. 

He would crush me with a storm and multiply my wounds for no reason. 

Job 9:16-17

In a development that is both surprising and entirely fitting, God does indeed respond to Job, speaking to him and his four counsellors from within a storm. This is our first clue that there may be far more to the apparent randomness of nature than Job had brought to his argument. (p. 122)

Job is being invited into a new way of thinking. God will push him to examine things afresh. Could it be that randomness and overall divine care can walk hand in hand somehow? (p. 122) 

God goes on to take full responsibility for the processes Job has raged about, but he suggests that Job has misunderstood the situation badly: 

Have you entered the storehouses of the snow or seen the storehouses of the hail, which I reserve for times of trouble, for days of war and battle?  

What is the way to the place where the lightning is dispersed, or the place where the east winds are scattered over the earth? 

Who cuts a channel for the torrents of rain, and a path for the thunderstorm, to water a land where no one lives, an uninhabited desert, to satisfy a desolate wasteland and make it sprout with grass?

                     Job 38:22-27 

Here, God turns Job’s argument on its head. These events do not show a lack of control; they are actually how God brings about his plans. Job has seen them as individual, one-off uncertainties. He has seen them as uncontrolled events which terrorize mankind. God, though, is saying that they are not isolated instances at all; he is painting a bigger picture. The apparent randomness on the smaller scale is combining to form the order which emerges for creation as a whole. Job’s field of vision is far too narrow. God is telling him to widen it. (p. 123)

The authors then allude to some of the scientific research that McLeish has been involved in.

The mystery was solved when it was realized that billions of bumbling peptides had managed to glue themselves together into tapes. Their rapid, erratic motion was crucial to this: only by crashing around haphazardly would they eventually build up any kind of emergent structure. 

 The result of all this “randomness” is the formation of cell walls, the maintenance of correct chemical concentrations, overwhelming victories for the immune system and more. It is from within all the chaos that overall order is formed – and life exists.  

This video illustrates this with a computer simulation of an HIV virus capsid being surrounding by a drug, taken from this paper.

Modern scientists have learned that randomness and predictability are two sides of the same coin. (p. 124-5)

If our world was entirely random or entirely predictable, life as we know it would not be possible, and we could have no hope of any meaningful interaction with either nature or its Creator. 

We are told in the Bible that God has made it neither of these: he is found in both the chaos of the storm and the certainty of his love. (p. 125)

Creative influence

 How do you influence people to take seriously and engage with an important issue in society? My natural tendency would be to document the problem with statistics, background, context, analysis and concrete suggestions to address the problem. In that sense, I am a technocrat. A Presbyterian once joked with me: if Presbyterians had heard Jesus tell the Parable of the Good Samaritan, that would have formed a committee to prepare a report about the problem of violent crime on the Jericho road!

There are alternative approaches to social and political critique. They are creative and indirect. A classic example is the novel, Animal Farm, by George Orwell. I recently read it for the first time, prompted by my daughter who had just read it for a book club. It is a classic work of satire. The book is only one hundred pages, easy to read, funny, subtle, imaginative, and pointed. It is a satire of the Soviet Union under Stalin. Violent and sudden political revolutions may begin with noble values of justice, truth, equality, and camaraderie. However, power corrupts and revolutionary governments can quickly degenerate into totalitarianism, the cult of personality, corruption, propaganda, violence, deception, revisionist history, and inequality. Truth suffers and the oppressed can't face the pain of questioning the deceptions and the failure of the revolution. Power is maintained by creating "the other", constructed enemies within and without, who allegedly threaten the revolution. This justifies the violent suppression of dissent.

Sadly, the Soviet Union was not a unique case. The same pattern of degeneration has happened in Nicaragua, Venezuela, Cambodia, ...

Orwell had political concerns, being opposed to tyranny of all forms, both from the left and the right. After fighting on the republican (socialist) side in the Spanish civil war, he witnessed firsthand the ruthless purges of his comrades by Stalinists. This partially motivated the writing of Animal Farm. He was concerned about the uncritical support of the Soviet Union, by both the left, and by the right. The latter saw it necessary in order to win World War II. Orwell's earlier writing had been more direct, such as in Homage to Catalonia, a chronicle of his experiences in the Spanish civil war. But, Animal Farm had a far greater impact, particularly in the long term. A new edition is about to be issued, with a new introduction, by Jason Cowley, Editor of The New Statesman. This gives nice background to the novel and its enduring influence.

I also recommend an Econtalk podcast, from 2009, featuring Christopher Hitchens, author of Why Orwell Matters. One of many items of interest in the podcast is the discussion of the review written in 1944 by Orwell of The Road to Serfdom by F.A. Hayek.

Generally, I am not a fan of Hitchens as he was one of the champions of The New Atheism. I consider that their critiques of Christianity are largely ill-informed and superficial. Terry Eagleton has presented robust critiques of him and Dawkins. However, this podcast gave me a greater appreciation of Orwell and how Hitchens did justifiably become well known for some of his essays and biographies.

Orwell's strategy of influence reminds me of the examples of C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien. C.S. Lewis started out doing traditional apologetics: giving rational arguments for the validity of Christianity. Later, he took a creative approach, aiming to capture people's imagination through his fictional work, such as The Chronicles of Narnia.