A personal reflection on Christian spirituality

This is a personal reflection on the first hundred pages of the book

In the Midst of Much-Doing: Cultivating a Missional Spirituality, by Charles Ringma (Langham, 2023)

I have some reservations about "Christian Spirituality" that are slowly being eroded. One reservation is the fear of subjectivism that neglects objective and universal truths stated concretely (albeit imperfectly) by Orthodox creeds and doctrine, based on Biblical revelation. A second reservation is the fear of spirituality and meditation leading to self-absorption, introspection, individualism, and a self-legitimation of consumerist desires and aspirations. Finally, I have a prejudice to choose activism over contemplation. This book does much to address my concerns and invites me to a balanced Christian spirituality. The following statement in the Preface resonates with me.

the genesis for this book was formed in the midst of my own unsustainable evangelical activism, which was further complicated by my somewhat compulsive personality. My search for a more sustainable spirituality was also influenced by some unhealthy theological concepts that I inherited from my Reformed tradition—particularly its election anxiety and paramount focus on personal piety, with little attention to nurturing liturgical and communal spiritual practices. 

My focus on personal activism was also unwittingly reinforced by naïve Western notions about our capacity to change the world because we presume that God is “on our side.” When we take on a calling that is well beyond our capabilities and resources, we may boldly set out to try to make things better in our society while treating God as an onlooker, a boss we are seeking to please, or someone who is there simply to cheer us on.  (page xxv)

If “Reformed tradition” is replaced with some of the churches and organisations I have been involved with over the past four decades this reflects my own experience. I have had three major burnouts, each accompanied by mental illness. In all cases, they were precipitated by unsustainable activism, driven by wrong thinking and distorted theology. 

Only over the past few years have I come to appreciate, and even celebrate(!), my uniqueness as an introvert, a scientist, and a Christian intellectual. I am easily drained by social interactions, uncertainty, noise, crowds, rush, .. but am energised by time alone, reflection, reading, planning, rest, Sabbath…

Central to the book is the “trialectic paradigm of the head (theological formation), heart (spiritual formation), and hand (missional formation).” These cannot be separated, isolated, or given relative priority. We need to engage all of them and integrate them into our lives.

“the fundamental theme that runs through this book, … is that mission is not just a task but a way of life… our missional calling is: to join and cooperate with God’s redemptive, healing, and transformative activity in bringing all things into the new creation.” (page 21)

What is Christian spirituality? It is a relief to learn that it is quite different to forms that I encounter and resist. In particular, it is Trinitarian. The Spirit is not some vague source of mysticism that will affirm our own fantasies and desires but rather the presence of the Father and the Son, bringing to mind the teaching of the Son.

Christian spirituality is motivated and shaped by a life devoted to following Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit. (page 25)

key definition…: a missional Christian spirituality is a way of life in Christ through the Spirit that animates our love and service to others. (page 26)

Ringma identifies seven marks of Christian spirituality: a way of life, cruciform, sustained by the Spirit, communal, spiritual disciplines (Sabbath and self-care), for the life of the world, and being sent. 

Evelyn Underhill said that Christian spirituality has “everything to do with the political” (page 33). I found this surprising as I tended to think of her as a mystic who was disengaged from the “real” world.

Underhill also strikes a helpful note of realism, reminding us that in the grand purposes of God—the restoration of all things in the new creation already begun in Christ—we are “to take our small place in the vast operations of His Spirit.” In this, she highlights the importance of knowing our particular calling and giftedness so that we can function out of who we are and what we have already received. Thus, our missional spirituality does not depend on us alone, but has everything to do with the ways in which we have been gifted and called. This implies that we will need to embrace both our calling and our limitations. As a consequence, ministry is not a “grinding” activity, but rather joyful and purposeful service—which is also costly. (page 35)

This is amazing for me to read. It is liberating. I wish I had internalised this forty years ago. Being a low-energy academic introvert is not a flaw, curse, disability, distraction, or self-indulgence. It is part of my calling and giftedness. This includes my privileged family and academic background, education, and professional experience. This includes my love for learning, science, and nature. As well as my passion for justice and concern for the marginalised.

As a Christian intellectual, I enjoy reflecting on the world (politics, economics, science, technology, culture, and education) and trying to understand it through multiple lenses including theology. I enjoy sharing those reflections through writing, teaching, blogging, and my work with the Logos and Cosmos Initiative, within the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students. I receive positive feedback and affirmation from others for these activities. Thus, I find the passage below helpful and encouraging to put my efforts in the broader context of missional spirituality.

In contemplating the face of God through prayer, solitude, reading, and reflecting on

Scripture and our world, we cultivate friendship with God and we seek God’s will for our time. This will involve a hermeneutics of both text and context. Understanding our world will also involve the work of exegesis, theology, and the historical and social sciences. In our contemplation of the world through the cycle of action and reflection, we seek to understand both the goodness of God in our social fabric and institutions as well as the idolatries of our society and culture. Amidst this interplay, we seek to discern how God is inviting us to participate in God’s passion for the healing and reconciling of all things through Christ. (page 83)

Henri Nouwen notes how time with God is not inward looking and selfish, but rather gives us fresh eyes to wonder at those we love and care for.

Following the desert father, Evagrius Ponticus, Nouwen says that contemplation is about seeing “things for what they really are” and moving from “opaqueness to transparency.” Thus, the “contemplative life is a life of vision.” This new way of seeing involves seeing all things bathed in “the Creator’s love” and in the light of “the hand of God with us” in all that we are and do. However, this way of seeing life and the world is not based on a few extraordinary moments, but a whole way of life that is possible when the “God within us recognizes God in the world.” Nouwen observes that when we see “ordinary life with its daily routines and responsibilities with a ‘deeper vision of life,’” it has consequences for how we see others. He writes, “our time of being with God gives us new eyes to see the beauty and gifts in those for whom we care.”

Contemplation is not escapism from our struggles or from the suffering in the world, but actually the path to a deeper engagement with the world.

A key summary of Nouwen’s understanding of contemplation is that “the movement from loneliness to solitude is not a movement of growing withdrawal, but instead a movement toward a deeper engagement in the burning issues of our time.” (page 104)

Thomas Merton has a similar perspective. Contemplative prayer enables us to see the world as it is, in all its created beauty and the ugliness of human sin and idolatry.

Merton makes it very clear that contemplative prayer is not simply for monks, and he further emphasizes that it is not a way of escaping from life’s realities. In fact, the contemplative is always “searching . . . his [her] own heart” while at the same time plunging “deep into the heart of the world.” This form of prayer and reflection “does not blind us to the world, but . . transforms our vision of the world,” so that we can see the love of God upholding our world and gain insight into the “falsity and illusion” of much of life, along with “exposure to what the world ignores about itself—both good and evil.” (page 106)

I had the completely wrong idea about Teresa of Avila. My views were coloured by the discussion about her “ecstatic” experiences. However, she was actually a very practical person, being influential in "the Catholic reform movement, with Teresa of Avila’s emphasis on the “journey to spiritual marriage” and its outworking in “growth in love of neighbor,” " (page 115)

Ringma’s summary puts things in perspective. 

While it is possible for the Christian mystic to get marooned in the eddies of one’s own spiritual experiences, this is not the hallmark of the Christian mystical tradition. Rather, its orientation is rooted in the inextricable connection between the love of God and the love of neighbour. As such, there is a direct link between mysticism and ministry, (page 116)

Mysticism (contemplative prayer) focuses on internalising God’s love for us. But a genuine experience of that love through the Spirit cannot but overflow into a love of others, particularly those whose God’s heart breaks for, the lost and the marginalised.

Finally, I love the following quote:

The Jesuit philosopher and spiritual director, Father Thomas Green, while emphasizing the transcendence and otherness of God, notes that “God is really the most sensible person that I know” (Prayer and Common Sense, 9). What he means by this is not a denial of the mystery of God in the life of faith, but that living the Christian life is also about responding to and living normal life realities. He notes that “this world—and our human experience—is not a dream, to be rejected as illusory or unreal. Rather, we are called to see it from a new vantage point, in a new light” 

This book has already had a profound impact on me. I commend it to you.

Note: I received a complimentary copy of the book from the author, who is a fellow "holy" scribbler. 

What do Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Martin Luther King Jr have to do with one another?

This month at the theology reading group we are discussing Bonhoeffer and King: Their Legacies and Import for Christian Social Thought. It is a volume of eighteen separate essays and edited by Willis Jenkins and Jennifer M. McBride.

Martin Luther King Jr. and Dietrich Bonhoeffer lived at different times and in different contexts. Bonhoeffer lived, wrote, preached, resisted, suffered, and was executed in Nazi Germany in 1945. King lived, wrote, preached, resisted, suffered, and was assassinated in a racially-segregated USA almost a quarter of a century later, in 1968. Coincidentally, both were killed at the age of thirty-nine years and four months. Both took a stand against injustice and resisted tyranny, ultimately at the cost of their lives. Both were completely driven by their theological convictions, with a focus on costly and radical discipleship, and the Sermon on the Mount.

Both had communitarian perspectives on life and politics. Here is an example, from King.

“In a real sense all life is inter-related. All men are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly. I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be, and you can never be what you ought to be until I am what I ought to be... This is the inter-related structure of reality.” 

 Martin Luther King Jr., Letter from Birmingham Jail

Note, that this mutuality resonates with the apostle Paul's perspective on the church as the body of Christ, as described in Romans 12 and 1 Corinthians 12:25-26:

But God has put the body together, giving greater honor to the parts that lacked it, so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other. 26 If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it.

Although there are similarities between King and Bonhoeffer, there are some significant differences. Foremost, Bonhoeffer as a Gentile and a child of privilege had the freedom to choose to take the path of suffering. In contrast, King and his forebears did not have a choice. Suffering was forced on them because of the colour of their skin. They were enslaved, beaten, lynched, discriminated against, and denied civil and voting rights. Yet in that enforced circumstance they had the choice to take the path of the cross, to suffer with dignity, to forgive their enemies, and to turn the other cheek (page 158).

A second difference was their theological perspective, including their interpretation of the Bible. King embraced his education in liberal Protestantism, claiming it more "rational", sometimes distanced himself from orthodox belief, and interpreted much of the Bible in terms of the social gospel. Bonhoeffer had a higher view of Scripture and embraced orthodox creeds. Note Bonhoeffer was against the tide of his time, when Germany was awash with higher criticism and liberal theology. Although, Karl Barth was a kindred spirit.

Both were preachers who carefully crafted sermons with aesthetic appeal and anchored in Biblical texts, metaphors, and theology. There is a nice chapter on "Preaching and Prophetic Witness," by Raphael Warnock, currently pastor of the last church that King pastored, and recently elected to the USA Senate.

A chapter, "King and Bonhoeffer as Protestant Saints," by Stephen Haynes, ends by quoting the first two stanzas of the poem, "A Dead Man’s Dream" written by Carl Wendell Hines Jr. as a tribute to King.

Now that he is safely dead,

Let us praise him.

Build monuments to his glory.

Sing Hosannas to his name.

Dead men make such convenient heroes.

For they cannot rise to challenge the images

That we might fashion from their lives.

It is easier to build monuments

Than to build a better world.

So now that he is safely dead,

We, with eased consciences will

Teach our children that he was a great man,

Knowing that the cause for which he

Lived is still a cause

And the dream for which he died is still a dream.

A dead man’s dream.

The futile quest for certainty in treating mental illness

Last week at my church we started a five-week course on Mental Health and Pastoral Care. It is being facilitated by a team with different experiences and expertise, including medical, psychological, pastoral, theological, and personal. I like this as mental health is complex and multi-faceted. My role is someone who has struggled with mental health for most of my adult life and has consequently read and thought widely and interacted with a diverse range of sufferers and carers. Previously, I wrote a post giving a theological perspective on mental health and gave a sermon on the Wisdom of Weakness.

A central idea in the course is that of the four-dimensional character of mental health, and the importance of an integrated perspective. 

This is captured in the figure below from Sanctuary Mental Health Ministries.

A specific case of mental illness provokes two practical questions. 

What are the causes of this specific case of mental illness? 

What will be the most effective treatment plan that will lead to healing? 

These are natural and important questions. The problem is that in most cases the answers are not clear.

In contrast, consider most physical medical problems or when technological device fails. An expert can determine the cause of the specific problem: an infection in the left ear, a broken bone in the right arm, an electrical fuse has blown, or the spark plugs in the car engine are not working. Furthermore, the expert can propose and implement a treatment plan that will solve the problem. Given the advanced state of our knowledge, we can be almost certain that the diagnosis is correct, the treatment plan is appropriate, and that the problem will be solved. This certainty reflects the wonders and blessings of science and technology.

The problem is that the success of the sciences in some domains has led to hopes, expectations, and a myth that similar certainty and success are possible in other domains of life. However, the problem is that human brains are much more complex than ears, bones, cars, and electrical circuits. The relationship between consciousness, brain, and body remains a mystery, and people are embedded in networks of human relationships (from family to global cyberspace) and have long and complex personal histories.

This quest for certainty is driven by healthcare professionals, big pharma, governments, and patients. On the positive side, this quest reflects our humanity in our desire to alleviate human suffering. On the negative side, there are significant benefits: financial, professional, social status, and political to be gained by offering certainty, even when it is not justified. In the case of psychiatry as a science,is the issue of its professional hubris are discussed in this book review.

This quest for certainty is also driven by human desires for quick fixes to problems.

One problem with the diagram above representing the four-dimensional model is that some people, both patients and professionals, will want to locate a specific case of mental illness as being at a specific point on the diagram. For almost all cases that is simply not possible. 

Origins of the modern quest for certainty: part 3

We live in an uncertain world. Some things we can be certain of: death, taxes, gravity, the sun rising,... Furthermore, science has been successful at establishing "laws" that describe many aspects of the natural world. Yet, certainty is elusive on so many areas of life, including in our understanding of some aspects of the natural world. Certainty is an idol that is crafted and worshipped by a cast of characters, in politics, science, technology, business, church,...

The yearning for certainty may be a characteristic of humanity. But where did the idea that we could have such certainty come from?

In a previous post I quote extensively from Miroslav Volf's engagement with 

Cosmopolis: The Hidden Agenda of Modernity by the philosopher Stephen Toulmin. He traces the quest and all its unhelpful consequences back to Rene Descartes. Here is another author from a completely different field engaging with Toulmin. Malcolm Miles, in his book Paradoxical Urbanism: Anti-Urban Currents in Modern Urbanism (pages 50-51).

the Discourse was written [by Descartes] and published during the Thirty Years’ War (1618–1648), a conflict between Catholic and Protestant dynasties and ideologies in which Descartes was a gentleman observer at the Emperor’s court. That is why he travelled in Germany and found himself in a stove-heated room.  ...Stephen Toulmin writes of this period that, 

‘rival militias and military forces consisting largely of mercenaries fought to and fro, again and again, over the same disputed territories … in the name of theological doctrines that no one could give any conclusive reasons for accepting.' [Toulmin, p.55] 

 Around a third of the population of the land which now constitutes Germany and the Czech Republic were killed, either directly in fighting or through famines resulting from the destruction of crops, or in the displacement following the burning of villages and towns. Both sides committed atrocities. Toulmin asks, ‘In this blood-drenched situation, what could good intellectuals do?' They could maintain Renaissance humanism, or

withdraw. Or, 

Might not philosophers discover … a new and more rational basis for establishing a framework of concepts and beliefs capable of achieving the agreed certainty that the skeptics had said was impossible? If uncertainty, ambiguity, and the acceptance of pluralism led, in practice, only to an intensification of the religious war, the time had come to discover some rational method for demonstrating the essential correctness or incorrectness of philosophical, scientific, or theological doctrines. [Toulmin, p.55]

This is the reason for the Discourse. But Toulmin identifies another

response in the idea of Cosmopolis, a fusion of two systems: that of cosmos, the natural world and natural sciences, with polis, political and social organisation. Cosmopolis unites these ideas in a single ideal as a means to resolve the separation of the natural from the social and political world. 

Toulmin argues that Cosmopolis figures in the rise of nation-states in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, replacing dynastic feudalism; and in the rise of natural science in the same period. Both seek stability, and the nation-state constructs it in the relations of states to each other while also constructing a hierarchy in their internal social structures, making modern political institutions on a seemingly non-contingent basis: 

It was important to believe that the principles of stability and hierarchy were found in all of the Divine plan, down from the astronomical cosmos to the individual family. Behind the inertness of matter, they saw in Nature, as in Society, that the actions of lower things depended on, and were subordinate to oversight and command by higher creatures … The more confident one was about subordination and authority in Nature, the less anxious one need accordingly be about social inequalities. ...

The comprehensive system of ideas about nature and humanity that formed the scaffolding of Modernity was thus a social and political, as well as a scientific, device: it was seen as conferring Divine legitimacy on the political order of the sovereign nation-state. In this respect, the world view of modern science … won public support around 1700 for the legitimacy it apparently gave to the political system of nation-states as much as for its power to explain the motions of planets, or the rise and fall of tides. 

[Toulmin, p. 128]

One could be certain about the motion of planets. They followed laws, ordained by God. Similarly one could be certain about social and political structures. 

As I argued before, there are significant problems with Descartes' ideas about universal truth and method. Humans are not cannonballs falling to earth or planets orbiting the sun. We are much more complex. The methods and certainties associated with mechanical motion do not necessarily translate to other systems: human, social, economic, and political.,

Wisdom in Weakness (a sermon)

Last Sunday at Village Church in Brisbane I gave a sermon, entitled the Wisdom of Weakness. In the beginning I talk about some of my own encounters with weakness through my struggles with mental health. I then looks at some Bible passages from 1 and 2 Corinthians that discuss weakness, particularly in light of the Cross of Christ.

The video recording of the morning service is below. (Sorry that the sound quality is not brilliant).

Here is the text of the sermon (including some material I cut out for time reasons) The slides are here.

Some local context is that a goal of the sermon was to help set the stage and pique interest in a forthcoming course the church is running on Mental Health and Pastoral Care.

The sermon has some parallels to a talk I gave a few years ago at Theology on Tap and led to a chapter in the book, Pub Theology.

Jesus hears the cry of oppressed Africans

But, do followers of Jesus hear the cry?

This month in the theology reading group we discussed My Faith as an African, by Jean-Marc Ela. It was largely written while the author was working as a Catholic priest amongst the Kirdi people in northern Cameroon. It was published in French in 1983 and translated into English in 1985. Ela was particularly concerned about the poverty, hunger, and suffering of the village communities that he was ministering too.

Here, I focus on some broad questions that are raised by my reading of the book, as a WWW (Wealthy White Westerner).

Is Jesus relevant to every context?

Ela and I would both answer yes. But, Ela argues that the Catholic church was not relevant to his context. The everyday life of his congregants was one of a daily struggle for existence, exacerbated by external oppressive forces. The dogmas, catechisms, liturgies, and rituals of the Catholic church were not relevant. They were entrenched in Western culture and thought, and ancient traditions that are alien to Africans. Furthermore, by aligning itself with the powerful and presenting a gospel that focuses on the afterlife, the church is complicit in the oppression of the poor. 

Although Ela writes from a Catholic perspective and experience, many African Protestants would agree with his perspective.

Yet, Jesus is a liberator. He identified with the poor, with social outcasts. He suffered with them in his crucifixion and death. Thus, the church needs to change. 

Universality vs particularity

This dialectic tension is embodied in the Gospel of Jesus Christ. He claims to be the Saviour and King of the whole world and for all time. The Gospel is for all cultures, languages, and ethnicities. Yet, there is the scandal of particularity. God chose a specific people, the Israelites, at a specific time, to reveal Himself, and to use as an instrument to bless all nations. Furthermore, Jesus was a particular man in a particular place, at a particular time. The New Testament writers wrestle with how the church is to express itself in a new cultural context, such as Gentiles across Asia minor. The struggle to balance universality and particularity, and to relate the Gospel to local culture has continued in two thousand years of church history. Ela was at the forefront of that struggle in his own context.

Abstract vs concrete

Western Christianity, both Catholic and Protestant, has delighted in and endlessly divided over abstractions, from the precise wordings of creeds about the nature of the Trinity or the Eucharist, to endless theological -ologies: soteriology, eschatology, ecclesiology, ... The outcomes of these intellectual debates have debatable relevance to concrete situations in everyday life or church life.

There is no connection between these abstractions and the everyday life of an African from a village or a slum.

What about Jesus? His life and teaching was rather earthy. Much of his ministry concerned eating and drinking with people, particularly those on the margins. He did not present abstract doctrines but told stories. His teaching and life were integrated.

Sacred vs secular

Valuing church traditions and abstractions imported from the West at the expense of engaging with local realities is an example of the sacred-secular divide. It values the spiritual and the eternal, liturgy, sacraments, over non-Church activities including temporal and material concerns.  

Jesus was certainly concerned about peoples spiritual needs and their eternal destiny. But, Jesus was also concerned with the material needs of the people he encountered, healing and providing food. Furthermore, he urged his followers to provide clothing, food, shelter, hospitality, even just a cup of water, to those in need. 

What is the meaning of the Incarnation?

John 1 states that "The Word became flesh and dwelt among us." Emmanuel means "God is with us."

Ela says the church thinks that "The Word became a text." A text is not of much use to illiterate peasants. In contrast, the church, as the Body of Christ, Jesus, the living Word can be present, concrete, empathetic, in solidarity, and relevant to African communities.

What are African realities?

Ela uses the term "African realities" repeatedly. There are many dimensions to this, including the following. Villagers traditionally survived with subsistence farming, growing crops such as millet. They now go hungry as they are forced to grow cash crops such as rice for external markets. The main beneficiaries are multinational companies and African urban elites. Disease and death flourish with access to Western medicine reserved for the urban elites. They are the only people with access to schools and hospitals started by churches to help the poor.

Poverty and suffering have been compounded by the massive migration of people from villages to urban centres, where they now suffer in slums.

Post-independence politics is dominated by corrupt autocracies who use violence to maintain power. Colonialism [oppression by Western rulers] has been replaced with neo-colonialism, the exploitation and oppression of Africans and their land by multinational corporations and national governments. 

African traditional religion has been misinterpreted and demonised by Westerners. Rituals that honour ancestors are not idolatry. What about witchcraft? People resort to it due to the irrelevance and the impotence of the church on matters of everyday existence.

What are possible ways forward?

Ela advocates community development. This involves conscientisation, self-determination, and agency. There are similarities to the basic ecclesial communities in Latin America, whose practices were influenced by the ideas of Pablo Freire, author of Pedagogy of the Oppressed.

What is African culture?

Too many people think of African culture in terms of the traditional culture that existed prior to colonisation. That assumes culture is static, rather than dynamic. Ela points out that African culture today is a rapidly changing hybrid, being a mix of traditional and Western culture. This hybrid culture increases alienation and a crisis of identity because of the internal contradictions and unpredictability of such a hybrid.

Ela considers it a mistake to advocate a return to the past traditional culture. This is both impossible and undesirable. Furthermore, many attempts at inculturation, contextualisation, or indigenisation in theology and liturgy are superficial. They merely consist of incorporating traditional songs or dress into worship. Ela sees this as a tool of oppression as it sidesteps the more substantial challenges of the church having a theology, practice, and communities that engage with current African realities.

Are African realities different now? 

The book was written almost forty years ago. My limited understanding is that many of the issues discussed in the book are just as relevant today. Perhaps some of the problems are even worse.

How is the book relevant to Western Christians?

Yes. A large fraction of Christians now live in Africa. Westerners need to know their reality, be in solidarity with them, and learn from them. Furthermore, engagement with different cultures and contexts can force us to reflect on our own culture and context and be more self-aware of our own limitations and challenges. 

A theology of mental health

Humans are complex. Society is complex. Theology and science are complex. Mental illness is complex. What causes mental illness? What are paths to healing? Can it be prevented? Here I explore how Christian theology is a rich resource to help address these questions. I write as a non-expert in theology, cognitive science, and mental health. But I also write as someone who for four decades has struggled with my mental health, read widely, and walked with many others on their journey.

As with many issues, I find it helpful to begin my exploration, with the key theological concepts that are encapsulated in the Biblical narrative: creation, sin, redemption, and re-creation.

The doctrine of creation highlights that humans are made in the image of God. We are relational, rational, and wonderful. Human relationality is reflected in the Trinity. We are creatures; we have finite capacities. We are designed by God to enjoy and live in harmony with one another and with the rest of God's creation. We are like animals but distinct. Rest (Sabbath) is central to life and its rhythms. Creation, from our being to food and nature, is a gracious gift. Mental illness is not God's plan or design.

Sin. (The Fall) We do not experience God's ideal: life in the Garden of Eden. Like Adam and Eve, we want autonomy, to rule ourselves. Like them, we are alienated from God, ourselves (shame), each other, and nature. Work is toil and male-female relationships are a power struggle. We live in a world that is marred by sin: individual, collective and structural. Sin has corrupted our thinking and desires. The whole creation is broken and groaning. Violence, disease and death, are part of life, but not God's wish, plan or design.  Given the multiple-dimensional character of sin's influence and presence in the world we should not expect to be able to simply identify the cause of a specific incidence of mental illness in one individual.

The tower of Babel captures human hubris and ambition, the vanity of our futile attempts to know and understand everything. Even when we don't understand we will claim that we do and ridicule and silence those who don't have our "correct" understanding. 

In her book, Mind Fixers: Psychiatry's Troubled Search for the Biology of Mental Illness, Anne Harrington, a historian of science at Harvard, comments.

Today one is hard-pressed to find anyone knowledgeable who believes that the so-called biological revolution of the 1980’s made good on most or even any of its therapeutic and scientific promises. It is now increasingly clear to the general public that it overreached, overpromised, overdiagnosed, overmedicated and compromised its principles.

Fortunately, we are not cursed and condemned to forever live in a sinful world marred by disease, despair, shame, guilt, and violence. God acted according to his promises, sending his Son, Jesus Christ, to usher in the Kingdom of God.

Redemption. God identified with humanity by humbling himself and becoming fully human as Jesus Christ. He proclaimed the Kingdom of God, preaching repentance and the forgiveness of sins, healing the sick, and driving out demons. Mental illness is not God's design or plan. People are not sick simply because they sinned or their parents sinned. Jesus death and resurrection bring reconciliation: between us and God, with one another, and the whole of creation. The curse of sin is reversed. Jesus is the suffering servant. He suffers for our sake. He has entered into our suffering. As he lives in us and we in him, we can participate in his sufferings. If we struggle with mental illness, we can find hope and comfort as Jesus knows and shares our struggle. Our liberation from our sin and the world of sin and disease is "now, but not yet." In this life, an individual may experience no, some, or almost complete healing from mental illness. Nevertheless, we can be certain of a future day when we will all be completely healed from every affliction.

Re-creation. There will be a new heaven and earth, where there will be no more tears, sin, suffering, or death. In this Kingdom of God, justice, truth, and righteousness will reign. We will have new minds and bodies. We will be living in the City of God which contains the River of Life and the Tree of Knowledge. There will be no mental illness. Redemption will be complete. This hope can give hope to those who suffer and those who care for them.

Living with virtue. How then shall we live as we wait for our redemption, even while afflicted with mental illness or walking with those who are? The fruits of the Holy Spirit include love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, and self-control. God has designed us to live a particular way. Hence, we should not be surprised to learn that research shows how forgiveness and thankfulness are beneficial to mental health.

What is a person? Our view will shape what we consider to be the causes and cures of mental illness. A Biblical anthropology acknowledges the complexity of the human person.  Different facets of the whole human person include heart, mind, body, and soul. These facets are highlighted in the following passage from Matthew 22:36-40.

“Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

[For the first commandment, Jesus quotes Deuteronomy 6:5 but replaces "strength" with "mind"].

Mind, body, heart, and soul are not well-defined separate entities but inter-twined facets. For example, "heart" refers to our will, desires and inclinations. It is hard to separate this from the "mind".

We are a complex whole and cannot be reduced to just one dimension: genetics, physiology, personality, experience, social conditioning,...

If we accept this complexity of a human person and the presence of these different but inter-related facets then it is natural that understanding the causes of mental illness and proposing action to prevent or cure it will also be complex and multi-faceted. We will never be sure we really do understand.

For two thousand years philosophers have debated the mind-body problem, which is now being addressed in cognitive science. In spite of many advances there is no clear philosophical or scientific consensus on the relationship between the body, brain, mind, and consciousness.

Another dimension to Biblical anthropology is the social. A human person is not an isolated individual who can be defined independently of their social context. Rather, a human is part of a family, community, and nation. The person is also defined by a network of relationships. The emphasis of Western modernity on individualism and postmodernity on the "authentic self" conflicts with the anthropology of the Bible and almost all times and places outside the past four hundred years of the Western world. Mental health needs to be addressed within relational and social contexts.

I now introduce one model for a person. It is discussed in the book, Mental Health and Your Church: a Handbook for Biblical Care, by Helen Thorne and Steve Midgley. I recently encountered the model at a one-day seminar given by Midgley in Brisbane.

I introduce the model with the caveat as a scientist I consider that all models are wrong, some are useful. I think this also applies to models in theology.

A human person is created by and lives in the presence of the Triune God. The Word of God and the Spirit of God can speak to the heart of the person, changing its sinful, wicked, rebellious, and hard state to one that is oriented towards the desires of God. But the heart is not some abstract free floating essence. My heart is embodied. My heart and mind are intimately connected to my physical brain which is also part of my physical body. My mind and brain have been conditioned and moulded, for better or worse, by my experience living in my body. Stress, trauma, and addictions have an effect. Relaxation, sleep, diet, and habits can heal and train my body. Furthermore, my body is also embedded in a social context. These are my circumstances: family, housing, school, church, workplace, neighbourhood, and nation.

There are several competing models of mental illness, and I have reviewed them in this post. The current dominant model in the secular world is the biomedical model. However, I would consider that these models are complementary and we need a multi-faceted model, nicely captured in the figure below.

[Figure from Sanctuary Mental Health ministries]

Three of these models [biomedical, psychological, and social] are promoted by people who may not be Christian and do not operate from a Christian theological framework. However, the models can be valuable for understanding and treating mental illness, due to the doctrine of common grace. Thus, there is a role for drugs and counselling.

Human diversity. Paul uses the metaphor of the human body to describe the church. It is the body of Christ, his living presence in the world. Like a human body, there are many members. They are not all the same. They have different purposes, gifts, and functions. The weaker members are indispensable. This means that those who struggle with mental illness are indispensable members of a church. They are not a burden that has to be carried. They are not a problem that has to be solved. They are not a distraction from the "more important" work of preaching and evangelism. They are indispensable. The whole body grieves with them, walks with them, and celebrates them. Christ's power is made perfect in weakness.

Acknowledging human diversity is also important to understand and to treat mental illness. On the one hand, we are all made in the image of God. We are all sinners. We all have the same biology. On the other hand, Paul acknowledges a diversity of backgrounds, life histories (calling), and gifts. This diversity means there are no "one size fits all" answers to mental illness.

Finally, the concept of the "powers of this age" is helpful to understand the causes of mental illness, and particularly its proliferation in the modern world. There are massive power struggles going. Some are clearly visible. Others are not. Forces such as globalisation, capitalism, and autocracy, unleash ideologies and technologies that undermine good mental health. Mobile phones, social media, junk food, consumerism, secularism, movies, television, internet, alcohol and drugs, are not just neutral. They are tools for some people to gain inordinate amounts of power and money, with no regard for human flourishing. These powers need to be resisted, from the individual to the global level.

Will we ever know, really know, for sure?

The beautiful novel Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi has many wonderful passages where the protagonist, Gifty, a Ph.D. student in neuroscience wrestles with profound questions. Here are two passages. The first wrestles with the common claim of a tension between science and religion. Both do not provide the definitive and certain answers that we hunger for.

“...at a certain point, science fails. Questions become guesses become philosophical ideas about how something should probably, maybe, be. I grew up around people who were distrustful of science, who thought of it as a cunning trick to rob them of their faith, and I have been educated around scientists and laypeople alike who talk about religion as though it were a comfort blanket for the dumb and the weak, a way to extol the virtues of God more improbable than our own human existence. But this tension, this idea that one must necessarily choose between science and religion, is false, I used to see the world through a God lens, and when that lens clouded, I turned to science. Both became, for me, valuable ways of seeing, but ultimately both have failed to fully satisfy in their aim: to make clear, to make meaning.”

The following quote highlights how science raises questions; whose answers just raise more questions.

“The truth is we don't know what we don't know. We don't even know the questions we need to ask in order to find out, but when we learn one tiny little thing, a dim light comes on in a dark hallway, and suddenly a new question appears. We spend decades, centuries, millennia, trying to answer that one question so that another dim light will come on. That's science, but that's also everything else, isn't it? Try. Experiment. Ask a ton of questions.”

A celebration of God's superabundant love

Too often theology, philosophy, academia, church, and the Bible can feel dry, boring, abstract, irrelevant, dour, and a chore.

But this should seem strange because the Bible is full of celebration: feasts, parties, songs, and poems. They are celebrations of love, thanksgiving, and wonder; celebrations of the superabundant generous gifts of God to humanity.

It is refreshing to encounter an academic book that addresses theology, philosophy, and the Bible in a manner that is a celebration.

I have read most of Biblical Critical Theory: How the Bible's Unfolding Story Makes Sense of Modern Life and Culture by Christopher Watkin.

There are many elements to the celebration. Here is one beautiful passage that reflects on the gift of creation and of the Cross of Christ.

The cross lifts Christianity out of the iron logic of necessity, of unbreakable cause and effect, up into a logic of superabundance...

...philosophy... could not receive theology's gift of a superabundance in the midst of life. There is no ultimate explanation of God's love, no rational justification for it, no way to bring it under the logic of necessity and equivalence. The love of God expressed in creation and in the cross is a reality with which the two-speed gearbox of chance and necessity can never come to terms. Divine superabundance is the raging bull that storms through the staid china shop of demure philosophical concepts, shattering every symmetrical plate and dashing every systematic bowl to the ground in a way that leaves not a trail of destruction but a grander, richer, and more open imaginary than ever before.

        (pages 420-1)

Celebrating God's generous gifts to us: existence, meaning, and love

“This paradigm of the gift places us in the posture of recipients. We receive existence, we receive meaning, and we receive love. To be sure we are creative recipients,... and receiving the gift of the universe certainly does not make us passive. But the fact remains that we are recipients nonetheless. The one thing we should not do with a gift is pretend we bought or made it ourselves. The giver is usually thanked, so our fundamental orientation to existence in the paradigm of the figure of gratuity is one of praise and thanksgiving.”

        (page 60)

Engagement with the world, in all its limitations, can still be a celebration

To live in God’s city here and now is to enjoy God’s limitless peace, love, and creativity; it is also to live a subversive, revolutionary life in this world as we repeatedly scratch the surface of the earthly city to reveal God’s goodness, truth, and beauty under its makeshift palimpsest.

Celebrating the gift of human language

Watkin writes as a gifted wordsmith, delighting in turns of phrase; not just his own, but also that of masters including C.S. Lewis, David Bentley Hart, G.K. Chesterton, and of course, the Biblical authors.

Origins of the modern quest for certainty: part 2

Part of the modern worldview is the belief that certain truth is attainable and that there is a single universal method (science) for obtaining that truth. People have not always thought that way. It is debatable whether quest for certain truth in all areas of life is possible or even desirable. Previously, I explored how the amazing success of Newtonian mechanics fueled hubris and confidence in certainty and method, along with several other worldviews.

Not being a historian I did not realise that the modern turn to certainty and method came before Newton's success and was fueled by Rene Descartes who in 1637 published, Discourse on the Method of Rightly Conducting One's Reason and of Seeking Truth in the Sciences. Newton was born six years later.

This turn is emphasised by the philosopher Stephen Toulmin in his 1990 book, Cosmopolis: The Hidden Agenda of Modernity. He argued Descartes' work was influenced by his own political context.

I first became aware of this important work through Miroslav Volf. His book, Exclusion and Embrace, contains the following text. 

In Cosmopolis Stephen Toulmin has argued for a need to revise the traditional account of the rational method's emergence. Rather than having been born out of tranquil decontextualized reflection, it was formulated in response to a given historical situation—to the ravages of the Thirty Years War fought in the name of differing religious persuasions. Toulmin writes: 

If uncertainty, ambiguity, and the acceptance of pluralism led, in practice, only to an intensification of the religious war, the time had come to discover some rational method for demonstrating the essential correctness or incorrectness of philosophical, scientific, or theological doctrines. (Toulmin 1990, page 53) 

Enter Descartes. In Discourse on Method he proposed the one correct method to acquire absolutely certain knowledge. The Thirty Years' War had more to do with this proposal than did the day he spent "shut up in a room heated by an enclosed stove" where he had, as he writes, "complete leisure to meditate on my own thoughts". 

Ever since Descartes, modernity has been dominated by "the charms of certainty and uniqueness" (Toulmin 1990, page 75) and has continued to dream of a purely rational method and a unified science which would provide a single right answer to any given question. Without a rational method we will end up disagreeing, and without agreement, we will end up fighting. The desire for peace gave birth to the belief that we can tell the one single truth about our societies and their history, and indeed about the makeup of the whole world. If there were no such truth, war seemed inescapable. 

 

Why I think science is so awesome

How does the Bible engage the big ideas in the university

At their best universities engage with big questions. What does it mean to be human? How do we know what is true? What is real? How should we live?

I really like the new book, Biblical Critical Theory: How the Bible's Unfolding Story Makes Sense of Modern Life and Culture by Christopher Watkin.

To get the flavour of the book you can download the first few chapters for free or listen to a podcast where John Dickson interviews the author.

The book is a monumental achievement. I admire it for its scope, balance, tone, and accessibility. Its breadth and depth cover the whole Biblical narrative and significant ideas from modern Western philosophy, politics, humanities, and social sciences. This means engaging with many academic authors, concepts, and perspectives. This provides a balanced perspective that surpasses common sectarian or partisan slants, whether about theology or politics. The tone is gracious; people and ideas are critiqued with respect and without caricature. Finally, for an academic book, I find it relatively easy to read and engaging. I enjoy reading it because I learn so much. I am gaining a better understanding of the ideas and thinkers behind modernity and post-modernity while being challenged to contrast and compare them to the big theological ideas (such as creation-fall-redemption-recreation) that flow from the narrative of the Bible. Watkin's prose is winsome and occasionally light-hearted.

A central idea of the book is that most modern social theories and philosophies present false dichotomies. They are imbalanced and so do not capture all  dimensions of reality. Watkin argues that the Biblical narrative presents a balanced, more imaginative picture that affirms both polarities. He uses the term diagonalisation to describe this. It is not a matter of either-or but both-and. In different words, the Bible presents a dialectical view of reality. Diagonalisation is best illustrated by one of the many helpful diagrams in the book.

This dichotomy pits traditional societies against modern societies and communal identity against individual identity. This is then presented as a stark choice between crushing individual freedom or undermining community.

The doctrine of the Trinity removes these polarities as it affirms both individuality and community. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are three distinct persons but are also in a harmonious relationship. 

The many diagrams in the book represent that Watkin is steeped in the use of models: models for theology, models for modern thought, and diagonalisation is a model for relating theological concepts to modern thought. This is good provided that we remember the maxim, "all models are wrong, but some are useful".

Is there an essence to being human that transcends a scientific description?

There is a nice Biologos podcast about the wonderful novel Transcendent Kingdom by Yaa Gyasi. In the format of a book club three women reflect on the book. Lynette Strickland recently finished a PhD in biology, Rachel Wahlberg is a neuroscience graduate student, and Christina Bieber Lake is a literature professor. Each begins by reading one of their favourite passages from the book. Their discussion increased my appreciation of the book, wanting me to read it again and I am now suggesting it be read in a couple of the book clubs that I am part of.

This podcast made me aware of where the title of the book first appears in the narrative, besides. Below the main character, Gifty, a neuroscience graduate student, reflects on her work in the lab.

“Though I had done this millions of times, it still awed me to see a brain. To know that if I could only understand this little organ inside this one tiny mouse, that understanding still wouldn't speak to the full intricacy of the comparable organ inside my own head. And yet I had to try to understand, to extrapolate from that limited understanding in order to apply it to those of us who made up the species Homo Sapiens, the most complex animal, the only animal who believed he had transcended his Kingdom, as one of my high school biology teachers used to say. That belief, that transcendence, was held within the organ itself. Infinite, unknowable, soulful, perhaps even magical. I had traded the Pentecostalism of my childhood for this new religion, this new quest, knowing that I would never fully know.”

Later Gifty reflects more about the mysteries of human consciousness and the struggle to use science to answer our deepest questions.

“a neuroscientist who has at times given herself over to equating the essence that psychologists call the mind, that Christians call the soul, with the workings of the brain. I have indeed given that organ a kind of supremacy, believing and hoping that all of the answers to all of the questions that I have can and must be contained therein. But the truth is I haven’t much changed. I still have so many of the same questions, like “Do we have control over our thoughts?,” but I am looking for a different way to answer them. I am looking for new names for old feelings. My soul is still my soul, even if I rarely call it that.”

Why choose forgiveness rather than bitterness?

My wife and I enjoyed watching the movie The Light Between Oceans

Against a backdrop of beautiful and wild scenery, it deals with deep issues about trauma, parenthood, infertility, honesty, justice, and forgiveness.

One of the most powerful and central dialogues of the film is a dialogue between a wife and her husband, Frank. The version below is taken directly from the novel on which the movie is based.

 “But how? How can you just get over these things, darling?...You've had so much strife but you're always happy. How do you do it?'

'I choose to...I can leave myself to rot in the past, spend my time hating people for what happened, like my father did, or I can forgive and forget.'

'But it's not that easy.'

He smiled that Frank smile. 'Oh, but my treasure, it is so much less exhausting. You only have to forgive once. To resent, you have to do it all day, every day. You have to keep remembering all the bad things...I would have to make a list, a very, very long list and make sure I hated the people on it the right amount. That I did a proper job of hating, too: very Teutonic! No' - his voice became sober- 'we always have a choice. All of us.”

― M. L. Stedman, The Light Between Oceans

Exclusion and Embrace by Miroslav Volf revisited

 This month's theology reading group discussed Exclusion and Embrace: A theological exploration of identity, otherness, and reconciliation by Miroslav Volf. Wikipedia has a useful brief summary of the book.

I first read the book and discussed it in a group twelve years ago and wrote several blog posts about it. I have significantly benefited from re-reading it. Late in life, I now see the immense value of re-reading excellent books, particularly dense and profound ones. Over the past decade, I have built a greater knowledge, understanding, and appreciation of theology and philosophy, and how they engage (for better or worse) with modernism and postmodernism. This has increased my enjoyment and understanding of the book.

The book is impressive for both its scope and coherence. It covers a wide range of Biblical passages, events, histories, philosophies, and theologies. Furthermore, these topics and themes are woven together in a coherent whole. By his example, Volf makes a strong case that Christian theology should be public, for the sake of pluralistic societies and for the sake of the church.

Volf makes a convincing case for the following ideas.

Conflicts, small and large, are intertwined with questions of identity and otherness.

The natural outcome of an encounter with the "other", someone with a different identity to us, is exclusion. Discrimination, violence, and genocide are manifestations of the drive to exclude the other.

The counterpoint to exclusion is embrace, even embrace of enemies. There are many complexities to working out what such an embrace looks like. This requires grappling with issues of history, memory, truth, justice, peace, and forgiveness.

Evil exists. It must be grappled with politically, philosophically, and theologically. Both modernism and postmodernism have failed in their woeful inability to seriously engage with the concept of evil.

The Cross of Christ provides the template and resources to grapple, both intellectually and practically, with why and how, we need to move from exclusion to embrace.

In spite of the claims of modernity to the contrary, discussions of truth and justice can only be and should be conducted with reference to a specific tradition. [This reiterates the perspective of Alisdair MacIntyre.] There is no "view from nowhere", i.e, a perspective that is completely objective.

To grapple with conflicting identities, traditions, and perspectives we need to  practice "double vision" [taken from Thomas Nagel] whereby I acknowledge I have "the view from here" and work hard to engage with "the view from there". In different words, I endeavour to put myself in the shoes of the "other", even when I consider them morally repugnant or intellectually flawed.

For a Christian, nonviolence is the way to work towards peace. This is rooted in both the Cross, the Ressurection, and the hope of the Final Judgement. Evil not only exists but it will be punished, and in a just way. But, fallible humans are prone to deception and revenge. And so, that final judgement must rest with God, as Jesus embodied and Paul taught.

Christian Platonism and Science

Recently the theology reading group we discussed A Christian Theology of Science: Reimagining a Theological Vision of Natural Knowledge by Paul Tyson. 

Paul is a former member of our group and so were happy he could join us to discuss his book. Here is one summary.

We have come to separate natural knowledge (science) from faith and moral beliefs (religion), leading to serious difficulties in integrating knowledge and meaning, facts and values, and immanence and transcendence.

At the root of these dissonances is the difficult relationship between a naturalistic philosophy that purports to be a scientific realism and the things that make us human: transcendence, faith, meaning, and purpose. This is the result of science displacing Christian theology as Western modernity's first truth discourse. However, Christian theology contains deep resources in its approach to knowledge and reality that have not been brought to the science and religion conversation since the late nineteenth century.

You can download the beginning of the book here.

I have a great interest in the subject of this book and it stimulated and challenged my thinking. 

Tyson builds on two important ideas from the historian Peter Harrison. In his book, Territories of Science and Religion, Harrison makes the case that "science" and "religion" are ill-defined entities and their definition and "territories" [the domain of their relevance and authority] have shifted over time. Second, in a 2006 article, Harrison, observes that in the late 19th century there was a "remarkable reversal" "from Christian theology interpreting the true meaning and validity of natural philosophy to science interpreting the true meaning and validity of Christian theology" (page 31).

In other words, "This is a profound shift from faith-based theocentric ontological foundationalism (TOF) to egocentric epistemological foundationalism (EEF)." (p. 32). 

Thankfully, there is a ten-page glossary at the back of the book so the reader can keep refreshing their memory of how the author defines different terms. This is important as terms such as truth, theory, quality, meaning, wisdom, knowledge, and understanding are used in the sense that Plato used them, not how a modern scientist or citizen might use such terms. For example, theory (theoria) is "A vision of meaning. An inescapably imaginative and interpretive act of the meaning-discerning mind" (p.120).

I appreciated the book for giving a gentle introduction to a range of philosophical concepts, particularly metaphysics and transcendence.

The heart of the book is chapter 7, which includes several helpful diagrams, such as the one below, based on Plato's metaphysics.

This is based on four distinct categories of awareness considered by Plato. Tyson translates these into wisdom, mathematics, belief, and perception.

The central claim of the book is that modern science as a "first truth cultural discourse" has made the line between rationalism and wisdom uncrossable. In other words, modern physics has reduced metaphysics to the unreal, the realm of speculation and fantasy. We cannot know the true essence of reality, the ground of being. We can only know existence. Tyson has a very different vision. He claims that the separation of metaphysics and physics is intellectually incoherent. He cannot accept the position of some Christian scientists, such as myself, that the methodological naturalism of science is not necessarily in tension with Christian theology. He wants to imagine that Christian theology can provide a vision of natural knowledge.

Today we are a long way from Plato who considered metaphysics as the basis of physics. That is, one starts with qualities such as the character of God and from that reason towards what one thinks the world is like. This led to Aristotelian physics, which was discredited by Copernicus, Galileo, and Newton. This is why scientists, Christians and non-Christians, are nervous about elevating Christian theology [a specific metaphysics] back to its pre-modern status as "the first truth discourse". It has a bad track record.

On the other hand, some atheist scientists claim physics determines metaphysics. In different words, the content of physical theories tells us what the world is really like. Science determines questions of meaning, purpose, values, and morality.

Update. (March 2024). Peter Harrison has written a helpful review of the book.

Why read Old Testament books?

 A wonderful feature of The Message by Eugene Peterson is that the edition that I have has an introduction to each book of the Bible from the perspective of Peterson. At church we just started a sermon series on 2 Kings and so I just reread the introduction for Kings 1 and 2. Here it is.

Sovereignty, God's sovereignty, is one of the most difficult things for people of faith to live out in everyday routines. But we have no choice: God is Sovereign. God rules. Not only in our personal affairs, but in the cosmos. Not only in our times and places of worship, but in office buildings, political affairs, factories, universities, hospitals—yes, even behind the scenes in saloons and rock concerts. It's a wild and extravagant notion, to be sure. But nothing in our Scriptures is attested to more frequently or emphatically.

Yet not much in our daily experience confirms it. Impersonal forces and arrogant egos compete for the last word in power. Most of us are knocked around much of the time by forces and wills that give no hint of God. Still, generation after generation, men and women of sound mind continue to give sober witness to God's sovereign rule. One of the enduring titles given to Jesus is “King.”

So how do we manage to live believingly and obediently in and under this revealed sovereignty in a world that is mostly either ignorant or defiant of it?

Worship shaped by an obedient reading of Scripture is basic. We submit to having our imaginations and behaviors conditioned by the reality of God rather than by what is handed out in school curricula and media reporting. In the course of this worshipful listening, the Books of Kings turn out to provide essential data on what we can expect as we live under God's sovereign rule.

The story of our ancestors, the Hebrew kings, began in the Books of Samuel. This story makes it clear that it was not God's idea that the Hebrews have a king, but since they insisted, he let them have their way. But God never abdicated his sovereignty to any of the Hebrew kings; the idea was that they would represent his sovereignty, not that he would delegate his sovereignty to them.

But it never worked very well. After five hundred years and something over forty kings, there was not much to show for it. Even the bright spots—David and Hezekiah and Josiah—were not very bright. Human beings, no matter how well intentioned or gifted, don't seem to be able to represent God's rule anywhere close to satisfactory. The Books of Kings, in that light, are a relentless exposition of failure—a relentless five-hundred-year documentation proving that the Hebrew demand of God to “have a king” was about the worst thing they could have asked for.

But through the centuries, readers of this text have commonly realized something else: In the midst of the incredible mess these kings are making of God's purposes, God continues to work his purposes and uses them in the work—doesn't discard them, doesn't detour around them; he uses them. They are part of his sovereign rule, whether they want to be or not, whether they know it or not. God's purposes are worked out in confrontation and revelation, in judgment and salvation, but they are worked out. God's rule is not imposed in the sense that he forces each man and woman into absolute conformity to justice and truth and righteousness. The rule is worked from within, much of the time invisible and unnoticed, but always patiently and resolutely there. The Books of Kings provide a premier witness to the sovereignty of God carried out among some of the most unlikely and uncooperative people who have ever lived.

The benefit of reading these books is enormous. To begin with, our understanding and experience of God's sovereignty develops counter to all power-based and piety-based assumptions regarding God's effective rule. We quit spinning our wheels on utopian projects and dreams. Following that, we begin to realize that if God's sovereignty is never canceled out by the so deeply sin-flawed leaders (“kings”) in both our culture and our church, we can quite cheerfully exult in God's sovereignty as it is being exercised (though often silently and hiddenly) in all the circumstantial details of the actual present.

Remembering Tom McLeish

I was very sad to hear that Tom McLeish died of cancer at the end of February. He was an extraordinary person, scientist, and Christian. Tom can been characterised as a polymath or a "renaissance man". He modeled an integrated life, as a Christian, a scientist, and a member of a university community. He showed what universities should be about and can be about, in stark contrast to what they have become [fragmented, commercialised, and micro-managed]. 

A small measure of Tom's influence on me is that there are eight posts on my science blog about his work and another seven posts on this blog.

Tom's academic career is briefly sketched in an obituary from the University of York, where for the last few years he held a position, created for him, Professor of Natural Philosophy in the physics department. Tom was best known in the scientific community for his work on the theory of soft matter, for which he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society. I highly recommend his Very Short Introduction on the subject. But the influence and recognition of his intellectual contributions go far beyond his work on soft matter. For example, after the publication of The Poetry and Music of Science: Comparing Creativity in Science and Art by Oxford University Press in 2019, the following year the journal Interdisciplinary Science Reviews devoted a whole issue to seven different reviews of the book, with a response from Tom. 

Tom was a trustee of the John Templeton Foundation and was very supportive of the IFES Logos and Cosmos Initiative that the foundation funded and I am very involved in. He gave me valuable advice about many elements of this program and spoke at several training workshops. Participants have benefitted significantly from his books and talks about theology and the sciences.

David Bentley Hart has written a moving tribute to Tom. It contains a beautiful description of Tom's final days trusting in Christ, written by his wife. Tom was a model to me in life and in death.  

My condolences to Tom's family, friends, and colleagues. He died much too young and will be sorely missed.