The power of saying sorry

Richard Flanagan is an esteemed Australian writer. My son recently gave our family a copy of Flanagan's recent book, Question 7. It is a personal memoir that masterfully weaves together a wide array of topics, from nuclear physics to the Tasmanian wilderness. The most striking part of the book was the following beautiful passage (page 140).

"Three Japanese women to see my father many years later. They came with gifts. They asked him to tell his story and they listened they said they were sorry.

There was a sense of strange ceremony, the awkwardness of ensuring something exquisitely fragile was not dropped before being given and received. There was a reserve on the part of both my father and the women, perhaps explicable as a nervousness about giving offence when none was intended.

They were part of a group of Japanese women committed to exposing Japanese war crimes. Two were middle-aged. One was elderly. They were brave and dignified. The eldest was their leader. She had survived the the Tokyo fire bombing. My father expressed his sorrow.

His children and his grandchildren were all there. We watched this with its strange weight of human dignity and goodness. I could not ever have believed that saying sorry might mean so much. None was the government. None bore responsibility. No one spoke for anyone other than themselves. Nothing said had had any national consequence. Yet in that strange communion lay liberation. What other answer can any of us make to the terrible question of history?"

Behold! Life!

Is life a miracle to behold or a problem to be solved and something to be explained?

I have enjoyed reading Wendell Berry's book, Life is a Miracle: An Essay Against Modern Superstition. It is a passionate critique and response to E.O. Wilson's book Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge.

[A brief and helpful summary is in Kirkus Reviews].

Berry is a poet, farmer, and former professor. He takes umbrage at Wilson's scientism and reductionism, which Berry considers to present an impoverished view of life, nature, and the university.

Berry has lived and worked on a farm for decades while writing. I cannot imagine doing this, as I am impractical. The passages below [page 45] gave me insight into what he is trying to achieve.

"In all of the thirty-seven years I have worked here, I have been trying to learn a language particular enough to speak of this place as it is and of my being as I am. My success, as I well know, has been poor enough, and yet I am glad of the effort, for it has helped me to make, and to remember always, the distinction between reduction and the thing reduced..."

“But, when I try to make my language more particular, I see that the life of this place is always emerging beyond expectation or prediction or typicality, that it is unique, given to the world minute by minute, only once, never to be repeated. And this is when I see that this life is a miracle, absolutely worth having, absolutely worth saving. We are alive within mystery, by miracle.”

Berry taught at a university for many years but eventually became disillusioned for reasons discussed in his essay, The Loss of the University.

Did Jesus believe in miracles?

A legacy of the Enlightenment was the notion of a divide between the natural and supernatural. Miracles can only happen if God intervenes in the natural world.

There was a nice discussion of these issues in a podcast episode, The Intelligible Universe, where John Dickson has a discussion with Peter Harrison and two astrophysicists, Sarah Sweet and Luke Barnes. 

[Aside: It was a treat for my wife and I to be in the audience where this episode was recorded live in Brisbane earlier this year.]

Peter Harrison recently published Some New World: Myths of Supernatural Belief in a Secular Age

Here is a summary of one of the relevant chapters

This chapter gives an account of the origins of our present understanding of the natural/supernatural divide, showing how the terminology of the ‘supernatural’ first emerged in the Middle Ages and gradually assumed its modern form between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries. The attendant ‘isms’—naturalism and supernaturalism—arrive at the end of this period, during the 1800s. The original context for the naturalism/supernaturalism distinction was neither science nor philosophy, but the sphere of biblical criticism. From there it was imported into a scientific context. The nineteenth century also witnessed attempts to reconstruct the history of science with a view to arguing for a long-standing alliance between naturalism and science. A more accurate portrayal of the relevant history shows, to the contrary, that ‘science’ had been consistently aligned with theistic assumptions about the regularities of nature. These regularities were formalised as laws of nature in the seventeenth century, at which time they were understood as divinely authored imperatives to which nature necessarily conformed. In the nineteenth century, what had originally been understood as expressions of the divine will were simply redescribed in purely naturalistic terms by advocates of naturalism. Ironically, they were now claimed to represent evidence against theistic readings of nature.

In the episode, John Dickson makes the following provocative argument.

Jesus probably didn't believe in miracles. Jesus probably didn't believe in the supernatural. If what we mean by supernatural and miracle is the invasion of an outside alien force into nature, that definition of course comes from the enlightenment.

It assumes a dualism, a spiritual ethereal world and the physical one. And every now and then the spiritual injects itself into the material. The gospel writers didn't share this outlook from their viewpoint, which was really the Jewish viewpoint. There aren't two worlds. There's just one world. There is just the creation that comes from the creator.

Everything that happens in the universe from the regular rising of the sun to the very surprising sight given to the blind person. It's all the powerful Work of the one creator working in and through nature. What we call miracles are not invasions from a parallel world. They are just powers, God's powers in and through creation.

And this is why the gospels describe Jesus baffling deeds, not as supernatural events, not even as miracles. They see them as special examples of power. And as signs of the future. The Greek terms in the Gospels are Dunamis, which means strength or power, and Semea, which means sign. Powers, that's easy enough to comprehend.

But what about signs? What are they signs of? It'd be tempting to think that what Jesus means when he describes his powers, his healings, his signs, that what he means is these are signs of the spiritual world. If only you could pull the veil, you would see a spiritual world invading the natural. But actually that's not what Jesus says. 

He says they are signs from the future. They are little displays in the present of God's intentions with all of creation...

Don't portray a supernatural world as distinct from a natural one. There is just one world, God's world, where the creator acts powerfully in every moment, and wherein the moments of Jesus healings, the creator gave a preview that one day he will mend all things. 

Beyond dualistic theology in Asian contexts

 For the global church, three questions that have attracted significant debate and division are the following.

1. What is the relative priority and relationship between evangelism, social action, and political involvement?

2. Do miracles of physical healing and exorcism of evil spirits happen today?

3. How unique is the Christian message and the salvation that Jesus offers in light of a pluralism of religions?

Over the past century, the global church has become divided over these issues. These fractures are not always just along liberal and conservative lines but between Pentecostals and others, and the Western and the Majority World.

These issues are explored in depth in Mangoes or Bananas? The Quest for an Authentic Asian Christian Theology, by Hwa Yung. This is the book for this month's theology reading group.

Most advocates of a particular answer to these questions may claim that their position is supported by the Bible or at least by their theological tradition. Hwa's important contribution is to argue that there is more to the story. Two influences drive different answers, and these are interrelated and in tension. The first influence is the culture and context of the theologian. Culture affects the way people think and reason; it gives them a worldview, a set of presuppositions that are usually implicit and rarely questioned. The second influence is related to the first, but more specifically, the overpowering intellectual legacy of the Enlightenment. 

Although Hwa focuses on his own Asian context, the book is relevant to a broader audience, including Westerners, such as myself, as it may stimulate a greater self-awareness of the influences shaping one's own theology.

Hwa follows David Bosch to identify seven contours of the Enlightenment worldview. In his classic book, Transforming Mission: Paradigm Shifts in Theology of Mission, Bosch has a chapter that is 90 pages long, Mission in the Wake of the Enlightenment. The seven contours are the following.

1. The supremacy of reason

2. Subject-object dichotomy

3. Elimination of the idea of purpose

4. Optimism in Progress.

5. Distinction between facts and values

6. All problems are solvable in principle

7. Humans are emancipated and autonomous individuals

Hwa explains how much of this is alien, both intellectually and emotionally, to Asian thought and culture. In a moving and personal chapter (added to the second edition) he says (p. 199-200).

"With these three issues troubling me (their resolution came only later) I almost lost confidence in my theological pilgrimage. Some of my good western friends urged me to go back to work on a PhD in the west. But I told them that I could not bring myself to go back to do a doctorate in systematics, even to the most illustrious of institutions, because I would die emotionally. For then I would have to spend the bulk of my energy and time justifying my presuppositions to Western teachers and examiners, whose Enlightenment mind-set would probably mean that they and I live in different thought-worlds."

The key issue for Hwa is the dualism of Western thought, in contrast to the holism of Eastern thought. He argues that this dualism underlies Western answers to the three questions, and even how the questions are framed or the importance that is placed on them. This dualism is nicely summarised by a footnote on page 53.

 "In commenting on the differences between the positions of Melbourne 1980 and Pattaya 1980 [a meeting of the World Council of Churches and Lausanne, respectively], David Bosch (1985:85) writes: ‘My contention has been, and still is, that both positions are indefensible, as both have succumbed to a perhaps, not easily detectable but nevertheless insidious dualism in which, ultimately, grace remains opposed to nature, justification to justice, the soul to the body, the individual to society, redemption to creation, heaven to earth, the word to the deed, and evangelism to social responsibility.’"

Balance is the necessary but impossible task of theology.  We need to be aware of and avoid false dichotomies and be open to dialectic and integrative thinking.

Balance and emphasis are the impossible but necessary tasks of theology

Christian theology is talking and writing about the triune God (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit). It has a history of two thousand years. There are multiple traditions: Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Protestant, Reformed, Liberal, Evangelical, Feminist, Black, Liberation, Conservative... 

There are multiple sub-disciplines of theology:  Biblical, Old Testament, New Testament, Trinitarian, missional, spiritual, historical, pastoral, practical, political, ...

There are multiple topics: Trinity, creation, sin, redemption, revelation, the Cross, the Incarnation, soteriology, ecclesiology, Christology, eschatology,...

Denominations, churches, parachurch ministries, and careers are often built on making one of these theologies central and dominant.

There is endless jockeying and competition within the church and the academy for the relative importance and priority of one of these theologies. Fashions come and go. The "breakthrough" or "paradigm" of yesterday is today seen as a mistake or irrelevant or simplistic... However, it is amazing how in the long run people keep coming back to something basic that centres around the Bible and the theology of the early church, such as in the Apostles Creed.

Different factions critique one another, sometimes carefully and graciously. Sometimes critiques are harsh, aggressive, dogmatic, selective, and ill-informed. People talk past one another. Individuals and groups and their voices get marginalised within certain communities if they do not conform to the favoured "theology".

How do we make sense of all these competing voices?

Much of the difference between these theologies is of emphasis. One particular topic, concept, method, perspective, Biblical passage, doctrine, creed, or historical figure is claimed to be the most important and to provide the key to making sense of everything else. The problem is whether the emphasis is helpful overall or whether the emphasis distorts the overall picture in an unhelpful way.  

Where does this diversity come from?

We should not be surprised by this diversity of perspectives and emphases as the diversity reflects the nature of the object under study and the nature of the subject studying it.

The objects under study are God, humanity, the world, and their interplay. This is a multi-faceted reality. The complexity of these objects requires descriptions at multiple levels and perspectives. This leads to a multiplicity of questions, methods, and conclusions.

Just consider the Bible. It has multiple authors, and possibly editors, who wrote in diverse contexts over two thousand years. There is a multiplicity of genres: history, law, poetry, prophecy, pastoral letters, and apocalyptic. How is this canon of literature to be interpreted? Naturally, the text will mean different things to different people at different times and in different contexts. The text does not interpret itself. Readers will interpret the text drawing on a complex interplay of interplay of reason, experience, and tradition. Even interpreters who claim to be drawing on a specific tradition have to also interpret that tradition. Given our diversity of personalities, life histories, and contexts it should not be surprising that we disagree about questions of meaning and significance on the most profound topic of all: God.

Everyone is a theologian. We are all human and this means that our theology is constrained by our limitations, individually and corporately. On the one hand, human language is incredibly powerful and a testament to what makes humans different from other animals. On the other hand, language, particularly formal academic language, cannot fully capture complex and subtle realities. That is why we have poetry!

Given our finite mental and linguistic capacities we need simplicity. This leads us to develop models, metaphors, frameworks, doctrinal statements and creeds. All models are wrong, but some are useful. 

Theologies can reflect the fallen nature of humanity. Our reason and communication are corrupted by sin. This can lead to the narcissism of small differences. Eugene Peterson says "a sect is a front for narcissism."

What do we really need? 

Humility, grace, and love. We need to be humble about our own abilities, individually and collectively, to discern the truth. We need to be gracious towards those who have different views. We need to be driven by love, love for God and love for others.

That there is a plurality of theologies does not mean they are all equally valid. On the one hand, we should not deny subjectivity. On the other hand, a careful comparison and critique of theologies different to our own may show their respective limitations. Commonalities that transcend our contexts may be a signpost to the essential truths to emphasise. Our focus should be on being more faithful to the centre, rather than trying to determine and enforce the boundaries of acceptable belief.

We need dialectic. A problem with many theologies is that they are dualistic. They are either/or. They embrace false dichotomies. There is room for both/and. Consider the following pairings: the humanity and divinity of Jesus, free will and predestination (human agency and God's sovereignty), faith and works, grace and judgement, redemption now but not yet, creation and fall (humans being made in the image of God versus corrupted by sin), faith and reason, special and general revelation, ... They need to be held in creative tension. Finding such a balance is impossible to do perfectly. But it is necessary if we are to be faithful to our subject.

Balance and emphasis are the impossible but necessary tasks of theology.

Lectures on science and Christianity: part 2

 I have uploaded to YouTube part 2 of my lectures on Science, Christianity and Apologetics

Historical and Philosophical Perspectives

0. Overview of Part 2 

1. Do ancient religious texts contain modern scientific knowledge? 

2. The Christian origins of modern science 

3. Science and philosophy 

4. Some landmark historical conflicts between science and Christianity 

5. Science, Christianity, and mission in the context of colonialism

Integrated mission for global historic Christianity

This month at the theology reading group we discussed Integrated Mission: Recovering a Christian Spirituality for Evangelical Integral Transformation by Sarah Nicholl and published by Langham.

Sarah is a member of the reading group. The book is based on her recent Ph.D. thesis. She recently gave a talk on the book at Theology on Tap Brisbane.

Sarah considers the Lausanne Movement through the statements issued at their three global congresses: Lausanne (1974), Manilla (1989), and Cape Town (2011). [The book was completed because the most recent congress, held in Seoul last month]. 

Her focus is on the lack of discussion of the role of Christian spirituality in mission. She creatively addresses this by listening to four voices: John Wesley, Ignatius of Loyola, Orlando Costas, and Segundo Galilea. 

Major themes in the book. These themes are to varying degrees explicit and implicit. 

Integration. Since its origin, Lausanne has stimulated debates about the relationship and relative priority for Christians of evangelism (defined as the verbal proclamation of the Gospel to those who do not identify as followers of Jesus) and social action, such as serving the poor and addressing unjust social structures. These debates led to the concept of integral mission, which does not prioritise one but integrates them. This perspective was pioneered by some attendees, including Costas, who are sometimes identified as "radicals".

The book explicitly focuses on the integration of spirituality and mission (being and doing, acts of piety and of mercy, heart and hands,...). Implicit is a broader perspective on the need for integrative thinking and action in other areas. Dualities such as public/private and secular/sacred are briefly mentioned.

Ecumenical. Both Lausanne and Sarah identify as evangelical and Protestant. Nevertheless, unlike some, Sarah considers there is much to learn about mission, spirituality, and the Christian life from Catholics. Two of her dialogue partners, Ignatius and Galilea are Catholic. Ignatius pioneered The Spiritual Exercises, including the Examen, that are increasingly used by Protestants. Sarah is also sympathetic to a form of sacramentalism.

Sacramentalism. This sees all of life as sacred and considers that engagement with even mundane aspects of life can lead to a rich experience of God, just as for acts that are explicitly identified as sacraments, such as baptism, the Eucharist (holy communion), or marriage. Sarah explicitly discusses a sacramental view of mission in terms of Matthew 25. In that passage, Jesus says that those who feed the hungry, clothe the naked, and provide shelter, are actually doing it to him. Hence, such acts of mercy are encounters with Jesus.

Ministry at the margins should be central. Jesus was a friend of sinners, tax collectors and prostitutes. He embraced lepers, cripples, the demon-possessed, Samaritans, and Gentiles. He came from Galilee and commenced his ministry there. Jesus was scorned by the religious establishment and warned of the dangers of wealth, social status, and worldly power. In summary, Jesus operated on the margins and embraced those on the margins. 

Yet, the history of Christianity has been characterised by an unrelenting desire and embrace of power, wealth, social status, and formal institutionalisation. People on the margins (social, economic, health, political, ethnic, geographical, educational, theological, gender,...) have been and are marginalised. Nevertheless, again and again, in the long term, at the centre the church dwindles, loses vitality, and diminishes in influence. In contrast, on the margins, the church grows in numbers, dynamism, and influence. Shifts and struggles in Lausanne are a reflection of the Majority World involvement.

All four voices engaged by Sarah testify to the importance of ministry from and to the margins. This was most clearly articulated by Orlando Costas, who emphasised the Galilee roots of Jesus' ministry.

Similarity in difference. The four voices came from vastly different contexts, spanning 400 hundred years, from Europe to Latin America, and from Catholic to Protestant. Yet they were all involved with mission, albeit in different ways. Furthermore, they all believed in and practised integrated mission. Their outreach was sustained and influenced by a personal spirituality and visa verse. Sarah follows David Tracy who considered that such "similarity in difference" can be a pointer to truth. 

A person or community's perspective on any matter is influenced by their own context and life experience. Assessing the level of influence is difficult, especially whether the context is determinative of the perspective. This is important because if context is determinative it means the perspective may not be valid or helpful for other contexts. On the other hand, different contexts producing similar perspectives may be suggestive of truth.  

A major theme in the background

The fraught legacy of modernism for mission. Sarah briefly mentions the views of David Bosch. His classic book, Transforming Mission: Paradigm Shifts in Theology of Mission,  has a chapter that is 90 pages long, Mission in the Wake of the Enlightenment. Bosch identifies seven contours of the Enlightenment worldview:

1. The supremacy of reason

2. Subject-object dichotomy

3. Elimination of the idea of purpose

4. Optimism in Progress.

5. Distinction between facts and values

6. All problems are solvable in principle

7. Humans are emancipated and autonomous individuals

These issues are also explored in depth in next month's book, Mangoes or Bananas? The Quest for an Authentic Asian Christian Theology, by Hwa Yung

Implications for me

There were several things that the book challenged me on personally. These were not necessarily new ideas, but rather the struggles of practical and regular implementation. Hearing from the four voices was helpful and challenging.

Be engaged personally, especially with the poor. Just giving money is not adequate.

Spiritual practices and mission are communal and not just individual.

Contemplative reading and prayer. 

Minister on the margins. Listen to marginal voices. Engage with the suffering of those on the margins. Empower those on the margins. 

Lectures on Science, Christianity, and Apologetics

I prepared a series of online lectures on Science, Christianity, and Apologetics. There are four parts. Each part consists of about six lectures lasting about 20 minutes. They were prepared for a South Asian audience but should be relevant to many contexts. Here is the first part.

The transformative power of grace

I have been listening to Les Miserables again. I also rented the 2012 movie for a weekend and watched it twice. One of the songs that stood out is "What have I done?" Jean Valjean sings it after a priest shows him mercy. The song sets the stage for the unfolding story.

What have I done?

Sweet Jesus, what have I done?

Become a thief in the night

Become a dog on the run

Have I fallen so far

And is the hour so late

That nothing remains but the cry of my hate

The cries in the dark that nobody hears

Here where I stand at the turning of the years?

If there's another way to go

I missed it twenty long years ago

My life was a war that could never be won

They gave me a number and murdered Valjean

When they chained me and left me for dead

Just for stealing a mouthful of bread

Yet why did I allow that man

To touch my soul and teach me love?

He treated me like any other

He gave me his trust

He called me brother

My life he claims for God above

Can such things be?

For I had come to hate the world

This world that always hated me

Take an eye for an eye

Turn your heart into stone

This is all I have lived for

This is all I have known

One word from him and I'd be back

Beneath the lash, upon the rack

Instead he offers me my freedom

I feel my shame inside me like a knife

He told me that I had a soul

How does he know?

What spirit comes to move my life?

Is there another way to go?

I am reaching, but I fall

And the night is closing in

And I stare into the void

To the whirlpool of my sin

I'll escape now from that world

From the world of Jean Valjean

Jean Valjean is nothing now

Another story must begin

Source: Musixmatch

Songwriters: Herbert Kretzmer / Alain Albert Boublil / Claude Michel Schonberg

What Have I Done? lyrics © Alain Boublil Music Ltd.

Jesus and postmodern political life

What does Jesus have to do with politics, whether at the local or the global level? How do Christians live and witness in a pluralistic and fractured multi-cultural society?

This month at the theology reading group we are discussing
Jesus and the Powers: Christian Political Witness in An Age of Totalitarian Terror and Dysfunctional Democracies by Tom Wright and Michael F. Bird

The relationship between Christianity and politics is a complex issue with theological, historical, cultural, and social dimensions. I appreciate that Wright and Bird do not gloss over the complexity of the issue and yet write in an accessible, balanced, and winsome manner. I found the book easy to read and enjoyable. Overall, I found it encouraging and challenging.

On the other hand, I should point out that after I wrote most of this post I read a critical but appreciative review of the book by John Nugent at Englewood Review. He considers that Wright and Bird are too uncritical about Christendom, and that they view things too much through the lens of the creation mandate (Genesis 1:26).

The section, Building for the Kingdom (p.83ff) is inspiring. God builds God's Kingdom. But he invites us to participate in this work.  "we do well to distinguish between the final manifestation of the kingdom and the present anticipations of it." In other words, it is now but not yet.  Christians are to build for the Kingdom. This includes engagement at all levels of society, motivating small and large acts. Wright draws on 1 Corinthians 15:58

So, my dear family, be firmly fixed, unshakeable, always full to overflowing with the Lord's work. In the Lord, as you know, the work your doing will not be worthless."

He explains the significance of this in the following inspiring passage:

what we do matters because it carries over into the final new creation....

We are - strange though it may seem, almost as hard to believe as the resurrection itself - accomplishing something which will become, in due course, part of God's new world.

If that is true, then, every act of love, gratitude and kindness; every work of art or music inspired by the love of God and delight in the beauty of his creation; every minute spent teaching a severely disabled child to read or to walk... all spirit-led teaching, every deed that spreads the Gospel... - all of this will finds its way, through the resurrecting power of God, into the new creation that God will one day make.

 The work we do in the present to build for the kingdom gains its full significance from the eventual consummation of the kingdom in the time appointed by God. Applied to the mission of the Church, this means that we must erect in the present the signs of that kingdom, providing a preview of what everything will look like when God is ‘all in all’, when his kingdom has come and his will is done ‘on earth as in heaven’. When the people of the new creation behold its wonder and beauty, it should strike them with an acute sense of déjà vu, as if to remind them of a prayer they once heard prayed, an act of mercy they saw performed, a song that they had once sung that now echoes all around them, a sermon about Jesus that they now see spring to life, a cry for justice that is now answered, and a love that was even better than what they were told. We build for the kingdom, because what we do for the King carries forward into his royal realm.

Consistent, with the above passage, Wright and Bird have a broad view of what Christian witness is. It is not just words but also actions.

What about worldly governments, good and bad? The consider Romans 13:1-7 and 1 Peter 2:13-17. Rulers have been delegated by God to administer justice and so they are accountable to God. Just because a ruler's authority has been given to them by God does not give them carte blanche to do as they please or an obligation to their Christian subjects to blindly affirm and obey them. As rulers are accountable to God it is appropriate and responsible for Christians to remind them of this, particularly when they are agents of injustice. Furthermore, there is room for civil disobedience and in exceptional cases perhaps even violent resistance. (page 42-3)

The sacred versus secular divide is a false dichotomy, including in politics, where it plays out in church-state relations. This dichotomy may express itself in two extremes: theocracy (where the state enforces the orthodoxy of one religious community, as in Oliver Cromwell or in Iran) and autocrative secularism where the state is used to eliminate any public expression of religion (e.g., in the former Soviet Union and China).

Christianity is not primarily about "going to heaven" but "heaven coming to earth" (with now but not yet caveats).

(pages 61, 65, 66)

Another false dichotomy to avoid is the Kingdom of God versus the Cross of Christ. In extreme this puts social justice in opposition to evangelism, and the Gospels in tension with the Pauline Epistles. Wright discusses how when he was Bishop of Durham he oversaw churches that had a sole emphasis on one or the other.

(page 78ff)

“What is clearly not in mind is that preaching the cross to the ‘lost’ would happen in one church while acts of mercy for the poor would happen in another church. Advancing the kingdom means promoting the gospel from Jesus and about Jesus. Kingdom-work is continuing to do the very same things that Jesus himself did among individuals in need, challenging self-assured religious types, offering mercy to the downtrodden and forgotten, warning of judgement, exhorting faith in God’s generous forgiveness, and speaking words of truth in the halls of political power.”

Against Christian Nationalism (p.129ff)

“Christian nationalism is impoverished as it seeks a kingdom without a cross. It pursues a victory without mercy. It acclaims God’s love of power rather than the power of God’s love. We must remember that Jesus refused those who wanted to ‘make him king’ by force just as much as he refused to become king by calling upon ‘twelve legions of angels’. Jesus needs no army, arms or armoured cavalry to bring about the kingdom of God. As such, we should resist Christian nationalism as giving a Christian facade to nakedly political, ethnocentric and impious ventures.”

Against Civic Totalism (p.136 ff)

Under the guise of being "progressive" a state seeks "to regulate the individual's beliefs, convictions, conscience and religion". This has a strong "culture war" dimension and I feel that sometimes this threat is overblown by some politically "conservative" Christians.

A strong case is made for liberal democracy as the best form of governance, albeit the best among bad options.

“we wish to prosecute the thesis that in a world with a human propensity for evil, greed and injustice, liberal democracy stands as the least worst option for human governance. Liberal democracy is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition for a just society, but it can be an enabling condition for a just society.”

Eight benefits of liberal democracy are given. One is "Economic opportunity and equality."  There is substantial evidence for this, as argued in the best book that I read in 2019.

Following John Inazu, the authors advocate for "confident pluralism".

“Confident pluralism has a very simple premise, namely, that people have the right to be different, to think differently, to live differently, to worship differently, without fear of reprisal. Confident pluralism operates with the idea that politics has instrumental rather than ultimate value. In other words, politics is a means, not an end. No state, no political party, no leader is God-like, or can demand blind devotion. Any attempt by political actors to create social homogeneity by compelling conformity, by bullying minorities or by punishing dissent, whether in religion or in policy, is anti-liberal and undemocratic. "

What is missing from the book?

Any discussion of the problem of smartphones and social media. Today, they completely shape popular political debate, making it superficial, divisive, and polarising. There are several important dimensions to this. Christians are addicted to their phones and this undermines discipleship, contemplative practices, and incarnational ministry. Tech companies are now "powers" for evil that need to be grappled with.

There is a good emphasis on the multi-cultural nature of the church. In this context, it should be acknowledged that the global church is now centred outside the West. In the West the largest and fastest growing church are not white but immigrants. I would like to hear their voice on these topics. My limited experience is that many of these voices are less sympathetic to liberal democracy.

One book from an African perspective is The Church and Politics by Bernard Boyo.

John Nugent points out the book also lacks any engagement with alternative visions of political theology, such as due to Karl Barth, Stanley Hauerwas, or John Yoder, who are more wary of the church engaging with worldly powers. Admittedly, they might have made a longer book. In fairness, page 34 does mention Hauerwas's critique of Christendom.

The Undeceptions podcast has a good episode where John Dickson interviews Tom Wright about the book.

The Doge Leonardo Donà Worshiping the Virgin and Child. by Marco Vecellio (1545–1611) The Doge's Palace in Venice

For me this captures the ambiguity of Christendom. Who is worshiping who? 

Formulation of the doctrine of the Trinity was an intellectual revolution

The way we think about any manner of topics has been shaped by our experiences and contexts, including family, education, friends, churches, and culture. We all have an intellectual history and are embedded in contexts with an intellectual history. The way I think today in Australia is probably quite different to how a Gentile in the time of Jesus thought. Political histories are sometimes marked by revolutions, such as in China, Russia, France, and America. Intellectual histories also involve revolutions, such as the Renaissance, Enlightenment, and Protestant Reformation.

Colin Gunton has argued that the formulation of the Christian doctrine of the Trinity was an intellectual revolution, in his book, The Promise of Trinitarian Theology Until I read this I thought of the Trinity as purely an issue in Christian doctrine, not an issue that addressed fundamental issues in philosophy.

The philosophical concept [and field of study] of ontology concerns the nature or being or existence. In other words, what is real?

It was the function of the homoousion, the teaching that the Son is ‘of one being’ with the Father, to express the ontological relation between the Son and God the Father. 

It is to establish a new ontological principle: that there can be a sharing in being. According to Greek ontology, to be is either to be universal or to be individual: to be defined by virtue of participlation in universal form or by virtue of material separation from other beings...

the Nicene theologians introduced a note of relationality into the being of God: God's being is defined as being in in relation...

God is being in communion. "The substance of God, "God", has no ontological content, no true being, apart from communion" [This is a quote from John Zizioulas, Being as Communion]

page 9 

The crucial move in the process was to distinguish between two words whose meaning until then had been virtually synonymous, ousia and hypostasis, both meaning `being'.

page 10 

They had previously meant the same - being or substance. Their use in the doctrine of the Trinity made possible the distinction and yet holding together of the unity and plurality of God.

Scientific aside: there are similarities here to how a material is not the same as a state of matter, e.g. water (H20) is a material but atmospheric pressure is found in three different states: gas, liquid, and solid (ice).

This intellectual (theological) revolution opens up new conceptual possibilities.

at the heart of the doctrine of being a four concepts: person, relation, otherness, and freedom...

Central will be the point that a person is different from an individual, in the sense that the latter is defined in terms of separation from other individuals, the person in terms of relations with other persons.

page 11 

A relation is first of all to be conceived as the way by which persons are mutually constituted, made what they are. (That does not mean, as will be argued in chapter 8, that the concept is limited to the concepts that we call personal. On the contrary, it is also fruitful for an understanding of the character of the whole of reality).

But we cannot understand relation satisfacturally unless we also realize that to be a person is to be related as an other. One person is not the tool or the extension of another, or if he is his personhood is violated. Personal relations are those that constitute the other person, as other as truly particular.

page 11. 

By free is not meant by the reigning conception of the term, freedom from others. It has to do with a free and mutually constitutive relation with other persons, as well as with a way of being in the world.

A holistic perspective on liturgy and secularism

When discussing "religion" in the modern world there are many dichotomies: religion and science, sacred and secular, mystery and certainty, faith and reason, supernatural and natural, clergy and laity, transcendence and immanence, church and state.

Each of us and the communities that we belong to need to make sense of these dichotomies, as they have profound implications in ethics, education, politics, science, theology, and human flourishing.

I recently found the underlying philosophical issues, particularly about secularism, addressed profoundly by an unexpected source.

For the theology reading group this month we are reading

For the Life of the World: Sacraments and Orthodoxy by Alexander Schmemann

I find it very helpful that this group leads me to read authors and books that I would not normally. I grew up in the Anglo-Catholic tradition. In contrast, my church experience the past forty years has been "low" church. Most of these churches have been dismissive of liturgy and tradition, and have marginalised the Eucharist (holy communion) and any notion of a "sacramental" view of rites such as baptism, marriage, and ordination. I have also not been able to grasp the thinking behind those who are enthusiastic about Catholic and Orthodox traditions. Perhaps, I am just too practical and pragmatic. 

However, in the past few years I have come to appreciate liturgy through the Every Moment Holy and Celtic Daily Prayer books of liturgy.

I have been blessed by this book. It is amazing! It is not at all what I expected. 

First, Schmemann shares my concerns about the way that liturgy can take on a life on its own, be an escape from the "real" world, and lead to obscure and inane ideas and divisive debates about issues such as transubstantiation.

Second, significant parts of the book are about deep philosophical issues such as I raised in my introduction. His analysis of secularism is brilliant and insightful, and at least fifty years ahead of analysis today. Schmemann contends that secularism is a Christian heresy. This resonates with a view promoted more recently by Tom Holland and Brad Gregory.

Sacraments are not "miracles" but transformations.

A sacrament -...- is always a passage, a transformation. Yet it is not a “passage” into “supernature” but into the Kingdom of God, the world to come, into the very reality of this world and its life as redeemed and restored by Christ. It is the transformation not of “nature” into “supernature,” but of the old into the new. A sacrament therefore is not a “miracle” by which God breaks, so to speak, the “laws of nature,” but the manifestation of the ultimate Truth about the world and life, man and nature, the Truth which is Christ.

page 102

“This is my body, this is my blood. Take, eat, drink.…” And generations upon generations of theologians ask the same questions. How is this possible? How does this happen? And what exactly does happen in this transformation? And when exactly? And what is the cause? No answer seems to be satisfactory. 

This leads to a discussion of the problem with a reductionist approach to sacraments.

Symbol? But what is a symbol? Substance, accidents? Yet one immediately feels that something is lacking in all these theories, in which the Sacrament is reduced to the categories of time, substance, and causality, the very categories of “this world.” Something is lacking because the theologian thinks of the sacrament and forgets the liturgy. As a good scientist he first isolates the object of his study, reduces it to one moment, to one “phenomenon”—and then, proceeding from the general to the particular, from the known to the unknown, he gives a definition, which in fact raises more questions than it answers. 

But throughout our study the main point has been that the whole liturgy is sacramental, that is, one transforming act and one ascending movement. And the very goal of this movement of ascension is to take us out of “this world” and to make us partakers of the world to come. In this world—the one that condemned Christ and by doing so has condemned itself—no bread, no wine can become the body and blood of Christ. Nothing which is a part of it can be “sacralized.” 

True sacramentalism must go beyond a false dichotomy between sacred and secular. A false dichotomy is an fallacy that limits the possible options, reducing complex analysis to either/or choices and not leaving room for both/and or dialectic.

“to free the terms “sacramental” and “eucharistic” from the connotations they have acquired in the long history of technical theology, where they are applied almost exclusively within the framework of “natural” versus “supernatural,” and “sacred” versus “profane,” that is, within the same opposition between religion and life which makes life ultimately unredeemable and religiously meaningless.

Another example is the relationship between Word and sacrament.

“The sacrament is a manifestation of the Word. And unless the false dichotomy between Word and sacrament is overcome, the true meaning of both Word and sacrament, and especially the true meaning of Christian “sacramentalism” cannot be grasped in all their wonderful implications. The proclamation of the Word is a sacramental act par excellence because it is a transforming act. It transforms the human words of the Gospel into the Word of God and the manifestation of the Kingdom. And it transforms the man who hears the Word into a receptacle of the Word and a temple of the Spirit.…”

There is even emergence!

“the Greek word leitourgia. It meant an action by which a group of people become something corporately which they had not been as a mere collection of individuals—a whole greater than the sum of its parts. It meant also a function or “ministry” of a man or of a group on behalf of and in the interest of the whole community. Thus the leitourgia of ancient Israel was the corporate work of a chosen few to prepare the world for the coming of the Messiah. And in this very act of preparation they became what they were called to be, the Israel of God, the chosen instrument of His purpose.”

page 25

Beauty is important and should not be eliminated for reasons of functionality.

“Once more, the joyful character of the eucharistic gathering must be stressed. For the medieval emphasis on the cross, while not a wrong one, is certainly one-sided. The liturgy is, before everything else, the joyous gathering of those who are to meet the risen Lord and to enter with him into the bridal chamber. And it is this joy of expectation and this expectation of joy that are expressed in singing and ritual, investments and in censing, in that whole “beauty” of the liturgy which has so often been denounced as unnecessary and even sinful. 

Unnecessary it is indeed, for we are beyond the categories of the “necessary.” Beauty is never “necessary,” “functional” or “useful.” And when, expecting someone whom we love, we put a beautiful tablecloth on the table and decorate it with candles and flowers, we do all this not out of necessity, but out of love. And the Church is love, expectation and joy. It is heaven on earth,”

Faith is not just intellectual belief or assent to propositions. It is love, relational, and trust in Christ.

But faith itself is the acceptance not of this or that "proposition" about Christ, but of Christ Himself as the Life and the light of life. (I Jn. 1:2). 

In this sense Christian faith is radically different from "religious belief." Its starting point is not "believe" but love. In itself and by itself all belief is partial, fragmentary, fragile...  Only love never fails (I Cor. 13). And if to love someone means that I have my life in him, or rather that he has become the "content" of my life, to love Christ is to know and to possess Him as the Life of my life. 

(p.104-105)

Moses was a failure and so why do we project success

[Moses] dies, by all human accounting, a failure, and knowing that he is a failure, knowing that everything that he has worked for in leading, training, and praying for this community will unravel as soon as the people enter Canaan. 

It is a familiar story for readers of Scripture, even though frequently suppressed. What does this mean? 

It means that we have to revise our ideas of the holy community to conform to what is revealed in Scripture. 

It means that we cannot impose our paradisiacal visions of hanging out with lovely, upbeat, and beautiful people when we enter a Christian congregation. 

It means that God’s way of working with us in community has virtually nothing to do with the world’s idea of getting things done, of what ‘works’ and what doesn’t. 

It means that God hasn’t changed his modus operandi of choosing the ‘low and despised in the world’ (1 Cor. 1:28) to form his community. 

It means that we who want to get in on what God does in the way God does it in all matters of community, will have to give up pretensions of shaping an organization that the world will think is wonderful as we parade our accomplishments to the tune of ‘worship’ or ‘evangelism.’

Eugene Peterson, Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places, p. 266

Laura Cerbus has some helpful thoughts on this subject.

Living as a Christian is counter-cultural

What is absolutely basic to the Christian life? Eugene Peterson argues that it is not all about us. Rather, it is all about God. Furthermore, it is not about Christians doing stuff. Rather it is about Christians participating in what God is doing. This means that Christians must act in ways and use methods that align with the actions and methods of Jesus. This is Christian integrity. This goes far beyond avoiding sexual or financial impropriety.

Unfortunately, these absolutely basic things are contrary to the culture in which many Christians live, particularly in North America. And, due to globalisation, these pernicious influences have spread.

Two things absolutely basic to the Christian life are, unfortunately, counter to most things North American, which makes this intersection a confused place, clogged with accidents, snarled traffic, and short tempers. To begin with, the Christian life is not about us; it is about God. Christian spirituality is not a life-project for becoming a better person, it is not about developing a so-called ‘deeper life.’ We are in on it, to be sure. But we are not the subject. Nor are we the action. We get included by means of a few prepositions: God with us (Matthew 1:23), Christ in me (Galatians 2:20), God for us (Romans 8:31). With…in…for…: powerful, connecting, relation-forming words, but none of them making us either subject or predicate. We are the tag-end of a prepositional phrase.

The great weakness of North American spirituality is that it is all about us: fulfilling our potential, getting in on the blessings of God, expanding our influence, finding our gifts, getting a handle on principles by which we can get an edge over the competition. And the more there is of us, the less there is of God. 

Eugene Peterson, Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places, page 335

The advertisement below crassly captures the powerful cultural forces working against those who want to follow Jesus.

Sooner or later in this life we get invited or commanded to do something. But in that doing, we never become the subject of the Christian life nor do we perform the action of the Christian life. We are invited or commanded into what I call prepositional participation. The prepositions that join us to God and God’s action in us within the world—the with, the in, the for—are very important, but they are essentially a matter of the ways and means of being in on and participating in what God is doing.

These ways and means are the second basic in the Christian life that are also counter to most things American. Ways and means must be appropriate to ends. We cannot participate in God’s work but then insist on doing it in our own way. We cannot participate in the building of God’s kingdom but then use the devil’s tools and nails. Christ is the way as well as the truth and the life. When we don’t do it his way, we mess up the truth and we miss out on the life.

Power, science, and the academy

Power is the ability to influence what people think, how they feel, and how they act. Power can be direct or indirect, explicit or implicit. Like money and technology, power in itself is morally neutral. Power can be harnessed for good or for evil. Power can be used to protect the weak and to enact justice. It can also be used by the strong to cause untold suffering and injustice.

How does the concept of power play out in science and in the academy? Science and universities are human institutions. Hence, their activities and organisation inevitably involve the exercise of power. Power affects what people believe is true, the narratives they live by, how the social context shapes academia, and whether the strong triumph over the weak. Below I discuss the power of ideas, the power of narratives, how economic power shapes the academy today, and the paradox of the power of the powerless. The latter gives hope in a situation in which it is easy to despair.

Power of ideas

Universities are primarily about thinking. Teaching an academic discipline is ultimately about training students to think in a particular way about a subject, whether physics, sociology, or theology. Research is concerned with thinking about a topic, gathering data, analysing the data, and formulating concepts and theories that make sense of the data.

Ideas are powerful, for better or worse. Ideas can enable us to synthesise and understand vast amounts of information. Academic disciplines begin with new ideas and accelerate when these ideas provide an understanding of a dimension of reality. For example, genetic information is encoded in the biomolecule DNA. 

On the other hand, disciplines stagnate and may become dangerous, when ideas become ideology. Then, an idea becomes an assumption that should never be questioned and is claimed to have universal applicability and validity. For example, Freud's view that the subconscious is shaped by repressed sexual desires and this determines behaviour. Ideology can frame discussions about economics, from both left-wing and right-wing perspectives. Free markets are efficient and produce the best outcomes for everyone. Or, the only way to produce a fair and just society is for the state to control capital and the means of production.

Power of narratives

Stories are powerful. They capture our imagination and frame what we believe is true, what is possible, and how we should live. Individuals, families, institutions, and nations all have narratives that they live by. 

Here are three powerful narratives involving science. These three narratives are interrelated.

a. Over the past two thousand years, Christianity has consistently been opposed to scientific progress. 

Promotion of this narrative began about 150 years ago with the publication of an influential book by John William Draper, History of the Conflict between Religion and Science (1874). This was followed by Andrew Dickson White, A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom (1896).

The book is still in print and available on Amazon. The publishers blurb for the 1993 edition states:

“The struggle of science over outmoded medieval concepts is still emerging. Even a century after its publication, White's great work has much to teach us about the dangerous effects of religious doctrinalism on education and moral growth.” (1993 edition)

Scholars of science and religion today accept that this narrative (known as the conflict thesis) is false. See for example, Galileo Goes to Jail and Other Myths about Science and Religion, Edited by Ronald L. Numbers. In contrast, it is accepted that Christianity did not hinder but facilitated the rise of modern science.

Nevertheless, this narrative is still promoted by prominent public intellectuals, such as the New Atheists, Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, and Sam Harris.

b. Science makes possible certainty in all areas of knowledge. It is the ultimate authority on what is true.

This idea began with Rene Descartes (1596-1650) and continued with Pierre-Simon Laplace (1749-1827). Auguste Comte (1798-1857) was the first philosopher of modern science and a founder of sociology (social physics). He was the founder of positivism, claiming that societies progress through three stages: theological, metaphysical, and positive. These correspond to eras of primitive (Christendom), Enlightenment, and modern science. 

This narrative of increasing certainty through a universal scientific method achieved power and legitimacy due to the successes of Newtonian mechanics. It gave an accurate quantitative description of the motion of the planets and cannonballs. It even predicted the existence of a new planet, Neptune, in 1846.

This narrative led to pressure for the biological, social, and human sciences to be more like the physical sciences and use statistical and quantitative methods. It has led to a marginalisation of the humanities in universities. It promoted liberal theology and doubts about traditional Christian doctrines and the modern relevance of the Bible. 

This narrative promotes the idea that science is the ultimate authority concerning what is true and important. In a desire to seek greater legitimacy in the modern world, attempts are made by apologists for major religions that their ancient texts are actually scientific and even predicted modern scientific discoveries.

c. Progress. Increasing scientific knowledge results in greater human flourishing and less human suffering.

A current proponent of this narrative is the Harvard psychologist, Steven Pinker in his book, Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress. Below is the publishers blurb.

Is the world really falling apart? Is the ideal of progress obsolete? In this elegant assessment of the human condition in the third millennium, cognitive scientist and public intellectual Steven Pinker urges us to step back from the gory headlines and prophecies of doom, which play to our psychological biases. Instead, follow the data: In seventy-five jaw-dropping graphs, Pinker shows that life, health, prosperity, safety, peace, knowledge, and happiness are on the rise, not just in the West, but worldwide. This progress is not the result of some cosmic force. It is a gift of the Enlightenment: the conviction that reason and science can enhance human flourishing.

This narrative promotes the idea that all social problems have scientific and technical solutions and that any limits on scientific research and the development of new technologies will be bad for humanity. 

The problem with all of the three narratives above is that they are not true. Yet they are appealing and powerful as they promote particular political and philosophical agendas.

Economic power shapes the academy today

All institutions are located in a historical, social, political, and economic context. Today that context is dominated by economic ideology, which has labels such as globalisation and neoliberalism. This ideology promotes the idea that "free" markets produce the best outcomes for all. Briefly, this means that decisions should be made in terms of economics. Students are consumers, faculty are human resources, and universities are businesses. Resources (capital, infrastructure, personnel, influence) are allocated based on what will generate the most income for an institution. The goal of scientific research is to generate technology that will promote economic growth. Researchers are competing with one another to obtain resources. Research is to be managed like a factory production line with well-defined timelines, measurable outcomes, and techniques. Everything has to be efficient.

This all leads to the marginalisation of the humanities and curiosity-driven scientific research. Awe, wonder, collegiality, doubt, and play are cute irrelevancies.

Universities are dominated by money, management, marketing, and metrics.

Like the culture, life in a university is dominated by the relentless pressure of individualism, immediacy, functionalism, and secularism.

This is a dramatic shift from the seven core values that shaped medieval universities, one of which was the notion of "scientific and scholarly knowledge as a public good transcending any economic advantage it might bring".

Derek Bok, a former president of Harvard University, has documented the problem of commercialisation in his book, Universities in the Marketplace, published in 2003.

There are multiple problems with letting economic ideology control universities and science. First, it is inhumane, diminishing the value of people and knowledge, reducing both to economic commodities. Second, it promotes economic inequality and injustices. Universities have become another means for the rich and powerful to increase their wealth and power. Third, this approach will fail to produce the putative desired outcomes of graduates who contribute to society through their creativity, expertise, and service or to produce new scientific knowledge that leads to technologies that benefit humanity. Countless examples of discoveries in science resulted from pure curiosity and had no clear practical application. However, some [but far from all] of these discoveries eventually led to unanticipated industrial applications in computing, communication, materials, or medicine.

The paradox of the power of the powerless

In the long run, the mighty do not triumph. The proud are humbled. All empires fall. This is because of the judgement of God. It is also because they cannot accept the way that the world really is and live by lies. Ultimately, they come up against reality and truth. God has made people and the world in a certain way and to function in a certain way. For those who do not accept this eventually their world unravels. This does not just apply to those with military, political, or economic might. Intellectual rulers (Freud, Marx, Plato, Dawkins) also have clay feet that eventually crumble. Intellectual fashions pass.

I find inspiration in the story of the early church. Their triumph over the mighty Roman Empire has been documented beautifully by Rodney Stark in a fascinating book he published in 1996, The Rise of Christianity: How the Obscure, Marginal Jesus Movement Became the Dominant Religious Force in the Western World in a Few Centuries 

Other inspirations for counter-cultural resistance are provided by Walter Brueggemann in The Prophetic Imagination and by Vaclav Havel, in Power to the Powerless.

This might capture our imagination as to the way forward. I believe it is to form counter-cultural informal academic communities that live by the truth.

This post is part one the session that I will be leading in a Seminar course on Power that my fellow "holy" scribbler is giving this week at Asian Theological Seminary in Manila.

Living as a Christian in the academy

Tonight I am giving a public lecture at Asian Theological Seminary in Manila.

Here are my slides

Here are some related resources

A chapter I wrote, "Living as a Physicist and a Christian", in the book, Why Study? Exploring the Face of God in the Academy, published by Singapore FES.

An article in the IFES Journal Word and World, Towards A Christian Vision for the Modern Secular University

A talk I gave at the IFES World Assembly in 2019.

Is My Phone Changing Me? Digital Discipleship in a Secular Age by Marcus Brooking

This gives a succinct discussion of how smartphones reduce attentiveness and distract us from sustained engagement with others, with ideas, and with God.

Church, community, sects and personal empires

When we think of "church" we may think of a specific gathering of people, building, or denomination. However,  in the Bible, there is only one church, and it is global, diverse, and centred around Jesus Christ.

Eugene Peterson reflects on the centrality of community in the third section of Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places: A Conversation in Spiritual Theology 

“When I became a pastor I didn’t think much about the complexities of community… I didn’t come to the conviction easily, but finally there was no getting around it: there can be no maturity in the spiritual life, no obedience in following Jesus, no wholeness in the Christian life apart from an immersion and embrace of community. I am not myself by myself. Community, not the highly vaunted individualism of our culture, is the setting in which Christ is at play.” 

 p.226

“The Bible furnishes us with a rich vocabulary that gives texture to the bare term “community”: people, people of God, congregation, great congregation, church, chosen people, royal priesthood, temple, family, body, commonwealth.”

The church is notorious for divisions. Just look at the list on Wikipedia of scores of different Baptist denominations, particularly in the USA! Today most of the largest and fastest-growing churches are independent churches, often centred around a single personality. We may tend to use the word "sect" to refer to an obscure and weird religious cult. Peterson uses the word sect in the sense of denomination, division, or niche Christian group.

“A sect is a front for narcissism. We gather with other people in the name of Jesus, but we predefine them according to our own tastes and predispositions. This is just a cover for our individualism: we reduce the community to conditions congenial to our imperial self.”

“The sectarian impulse is strong in all branches of the church because it provides such a convenient appearance of community without the difficulties of loving people we don’t approve of, or letting Jesus pray us into relationship with the very men and women we’ve invested a good bit of time avoiding.” 

“A sect is accomplished by community reduction, getting rid of what does not please us, getting rid of what offends us, whether ideas or people. We construct religious clubs instead of entering resurrection communities.” 

p. 244

Building an intentional community of Christian writers

For the past seven years or so, I have been privileged and blessed to be part of the "holy" scribblers: an eclectic group of writers interested in the interface of Christian theology, spirituality, and life. We are an example of an intentional Christian community.

Here I reflect on how I have benefitted from the group, why it works so well, some unique dimensions to the group, and what lessons might be learned for others wishing to establish such Christian communities. This post is motivated by the need to reflect on this for a seminar that some of us will give at the end of this month at the Asian Theological Seminary in Manila. Although the group is rather unique, some of my observations below highlight several dimensions that may be relevant to other intentional Christian communities.

The group has been helpful to me for many reasons. I enjoy the group and the fellowship we have. For my writing activities, the group provides some structure, accountability, feedback, advice, networking, and encouragement. 

Almost all the group members have published several books. Several say they would never have started, persevered with, and finished these books without the support and advice of the group. During the pandemic, we wrote a book together.

At several of our writer's retreats, I read draft chapters of my first book, Condensed Matter Physics: A Very Short Introduction. Positive feedback encouraged me to persevere. Networking is also important. Through the group, I have been connected to an excellent editor, who has been incredibly helpful in shaping a book on science and theology I am writing.

Who is in the group? We are mostly "retired", having worked  at some time in a range of fields: social work, marketing, medicine, education, law, physics, psychology, theology, ... Most of us have Ph.D.'s and have spent significant time teaching in universities and seminaries, including in Asia. There is an approximate gender balance. We are involved in a range of churches and all hold to the beliefs and practises of historical Christianity, such as the Nicene Creed. On the one hand, all this highlights the uniqueness of this eclectic group. On the other hand, it shows the dimension of common backgrounds and perspectives. But, there is unity in diversity.

What do we do together? Here regular rhythms are important. Every Wednesday we spend most of the day in the library of a local theological college, Trinity College Queensland. We have long chats over morning coffee and lunch. The rest of the time we are in the library working on our own writing projects.

One or two times a year we go away together for a week, sometimes to a local monastery. We share meals and use the Celtic Daily Prayer book for Morning, Midday, and Evening prayer. During the day we work on our own writing projects. After dinner each evening, we take turns reading out loud to the group some of what we have been writing.  This is followed by animated discussion and feedback. Given the high level of trust coming from long-term relationships, the feedback is honest and sometimes critical.

There is synergy and overlap with the activities of the groups that members are involved in such as Theology on Tap, A monthly theology reading group, Northumbria Community, and Franciscans,...

Due to the long-term relationships in the group, there is a strong commitment to meeting and persevering. Over the years, I have seen many groups wind down rather fast, because individuals are motivated by "what I can get out of it". If they don't immediately get tangible benefits, they decide to just "do their own thing" or go and look for another group.

The group is informal: there is no constitution, doctrinal statement, bank account, committee, minutes of meetings, leadership positions, or written goals, ... This sounds rather counter-cultural. Sometimes we do have to make decisions, such as where and when to have our next retreat and how to respond to inquiries from prospective new members. Such decisions are made by consensus.

So key elements are long-term relationships, time, trust, honesty, informality, rhythm, synergy, unity in diversity, ...