Getting into Paul's Letter to the Romans

At church, we are doing a sermon series on Paul's letter to the Romans. Below is some background material that I have found helpful.

First, here is Eugene Peterson's introduction from The Message.

"The event that split history into “before” and “after” and changed the world took place about thirty years before Paul wrote this letter. The event—the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus—took place in a remote corner of the extensive Roman Empire: the province of Judea in Palestine. Hardly anyone noticed, certainly no one in busy and powerful Rome.

And when this letter arrived in Rome, hardly anyone read it, certainly no one of influence. There was much to read in Rome—imperial decrees, exquisite poetry, finely crafted moral philosophy—and much of it was world-class. And yet in no time, as such things go, this letter left all those other writings in the dust. Paul’s letter to the Romans has had a far larger impact on its readers than the volumes of all those Roman writers put together.

The quick rise of this letter to a peak of influence is extraordinary, written as it was by an obscure Roman citizen without connections. But when we read it for ourselves, we begin to realize that it is the letter itself that is truly extraordinary, and that no obscurity in writer or readers could have kept it obscure for long.

The letter to the Romans is a piece of exuberant and passionate thinking. This is the glorious life of the mind enlisted in the service of God. Paul takes the well-witnessed and devoutly believed fact of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth and thinks through its implications. How does it happen that in the death and resurrection of Jesus, world history took a new direction, and at the same moment the life of every man, woman, and child on the planet was eternally affected? What is God up to? What does it mean that Jesus “saves”? What’s behind all this, and where is it going?

These are the questions that drive Paul’s thinking. Paul’s mind is supple and capacious. He takes logic and argument, poetry and imagination, Scripture and prayer, creation and history and experience, and weaves them into this letter that has become the premier document of Christian theology."

Here is the poster from The Bible Project.

and the videos

 

 

 Here is a word cloud.

A heartfelt reckoning with Australia's history of colonialism, racism, and Whiteness

Life experiences shape us, for better or for worse. They can be rich, meaningful, and beautiful. They can be awful and scar us for life. Much of our experience is shaped/determined by the family, culture, and moment we were born into. 

Both Stan Grant and I were born in Australia in the early 1960s and went to high school in the Canberra suburb of Belconnen. Besides, living many years outside Australia, perhaps that is the sum total of our common life experience. He has been successful as a journalist, both internationally and in Australia.

Stan Grant is a Wiradjuri man. His grandparents' home was bulldozed by the Police with the authority of the British crown. His family was dirt poor, always lived on the fringes of towns, and moved continually as his father sought itinerant work. He never stayed in one school for more than a year. No one in his family finished high school, let alone attended university. He says his family was characterised by love. His grandfather fought for Australia in World War II, but when he returned, he was not allowed to go to the local pub to share a drink with his mates. Other returned soldiers were entitled to housing. His grandfather was not. Family members were often harassed by the police. One was put in prison for speaking his native language. Until his family moved to Canberra when he was a teenager, most of his peers were indigenous.

In contrast, I spent the first 22 years of my middle-class life in the same house, my father had the same job that whole time,  both my parents had a Ph.D., and the schools I attended were "lily white".

Literature can be powerful because it can create empathy. It can help us see and feel the world through the eyes and experiences of another person. Incidentally, this is one argument for the importance of the humanities and a liberal arts education. 

Grant is a gifted writer, and his book, The Queen is Dead gave me a glimpse into a world so different to my own, even though it is spatially close and overlapping. The emotions I experienced included sadness, confusion, shock, anger, embarrassment, powerlessness, despair, frustration, and guilt. I guess that my emotional responses are tame and transient compared to the raw emotions that Grant lives with, day in and day out.

Most chapters begin with the refrain. "The White Queen is dead."  The book is prompted by the death of the British monarch in 2023. It is not about her as a person. "The White Queen is a metaphor". (page 9). The book is a personal reckoning with the legacy of colonialism and racism in Australia.

"How do we live with the weight of history? How do we not fall prey to soul-destroying vengeance and resentment, yet never relent in our righteous demand for justice?" (page 5).

Reflecting on his and others' response to the death of the White Queen, he states:

"And in my anger I am confronted again by the two consuming questions of my life: what is Whiteness? And what is it to live with catastrophe?" (page 54)

While in primary school, a white student asked Stan, "Why are you so Black?" (page 84). This incident has tormented him his whole life, and he keeps coming back to it in the book.

Grant reflects painfully on public events over the past quarter of a century that have attracted media attention and have a racist dimension. This includes the significance of the Sydney Olympics in 2000 for Australian identity, Cathy Freeman's gold medal in the 400 metres at that Olympics, the abuse of footballer Adam Goodes, the sponsorship of the Australian women's netball team by Hancock Prospecting, Hawthorn Football Club's treatment of indigenous players, and  Grant's experience working for and eventual departure from the public broadcaster ABC News. He helped me see these events in a raw and painful way.

Grant provides a helpful critique of modernity and the Enlightenment. White men "invented modernity as a place of endless possibility." (page 19). The freedom promised often degenerated into tyranny. Modernity provided an intellectual framework and justification for racism and colonialism. 

"Identities can nourish us. They can give us community. Identities can give us voice. That notion of identity is a conceit of the West - identity as freedom. But identity can also - and far more often than not, in fact - be a pathway to tyranny." (page 23).

"Modernity has supplanted god with its own faith in progress and reason. The liberalism that emerged out of the seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Enlightenment imagines that we can wash ourselves clean of the past. But there can be no redemption without atonement." (page 214)

We discussed the book this month in the theology reading group. At first glance, the book might not appear to have much theology, particularly if you read the publisher's blurb

Grant dedicates the book :

To Baiame, my creator

To Jesus Christ, my saviour

To Yindyamarra, the Spirit

"Vindicate me, O God. And plead my cause against an ungodly nation" (Psalm 43:1)"

Theological allusions are scattered through the book. Two short sections (pages 207-211 and 272-278) focus on theology. He engages with Simone Weil, the mystic who had a strong solidarity with the oppressed, and Miroslav Volf.

The first section reflects on his experience of church while growing up. A similar reflection is in a beautiful and powerful article, “This is the way healing begins”: Recovering the language of lament in a disenchanted age 

"For me, Easter is not a time of resurrection. I don’t rush to Easter Sunday but dwell in the darkness of Holy Saturday — the day after the crucifixion, when those closest to the crucified Christ shivered in fear. On that day there is no promise of tomorrow. There is no hope. It is the day when faith itself feels destitute.

It was the darkness of Holy Saturday that I felt — deep in my bones — when I was a little boy. I felt it in the church on the mission on the outskirts of Griffith in New South Wales that was a home, spiritually and physically, to my family. It could have been any of the missions scattered across our country. The places to which we were banished, and yet managed to find refuge.

There was a tiny wooden church on the mission. I remember cramming into the pews, with my best Sunday clothes on and my hair spit down.

My uncle was the pastor. He was an old-time fire-and-brimstone preacher. Not long into his sermon, his white shirt would be stained with sweat. He would constantly mop his brow with a handkerchief. He clutched a tattered black leather-bound copy of the King James Bible under one arm, yet never needed to read from it. He could recite the scripture from memory. With his other arm he would point. Each word landing — and I felt always landing on me.

My head would ache in that church. I would twitch and look out the window. I felt a heavy weight in that church. I have felt it in other black churches, places where our people come to worship. We pray differently. We sing differently. Our hymns are songs of sorrow...

Ours, you see, was the church of the forsaken.

Why, you may be wondering, am I talking about God, about the church, about Christianity? Is that not the religion of empire? Isn’t Christianity the legacy of colonisation? Certainly since the time of the conversion of the Roman emperor Constantine, Christianity has been wielded as the divine right of kings. It has interwoven itself with power and tyranny.

Yes, those proclaiming the word of God came to this land with a Bible in one hand and a gun in the other. The doctrine of discovery, of terra nullius, was itself a sort of decree — that any land not belonging to a Christian monarch was free for the taking.

Yes, God sat astride empire. But that was not our God. That is Christendom, not Christianity. God did not arrive here with the first fleet. We knew God. We walked in God’s creation, in the land that God had given us. We told stories to God. We painted God on our rocks and on our bodies. We had our word for God: Baiame.

When we heard the stories of Jesus, we heard the story of a dark-skinned man in a land of empire. Oppressed and colonised. A tribal man. We heard the story of someone speaking back to power. We heard the words of an ancestor. And in the crucifixion. We felt the wounds. We felt the shame. We felt the abandonment."

This is how theology should be done: personal and contextual, rather than impersonal and abstract. 

Stan Grant writes some wonderful columns every fortnight for The Saturday Paper. There is also a beautiful episode, "Disenchanted Age" of the Undeceptions podcast, where he is interviewed by John Dickson.

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?"

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.

Reflections on Prayer

Guest post by Robin McKenzie

It seems to me that a lot of our prayers are Santa Claus prayers: giving God a list of things that we want him to do. Quite a few of these are things that God has already done such as forgiving us. Instead of begging God to do things he’s already promised to do seems we should thank him for what is already done and affirm him for what he is going to do. What do you think? Consider the subtle difference in wording I put in the Lord’s Prayer below. I find it helpful because it reflects a major difference in my attitude when I pray it this way.

A variation on Lord’s Prayer Matthew  6:9-15

God, I declare you are my father in heaven

I will seek to honour your name

Your kingdom is coming 

so help me to do your will on earth as it is in heaven

Thank you that you have given me what I need for the day 

Thank you that you have forgiven me for the ways I have dishonoured you

And help me to forgive those who wronged me

Thank you for protecting me from going astray

And from the evil one

For yours is the kingdom the power and the glory forever and ever 

Amen

Redemption from words

My wife and I enjoyed watching the movie The Professor and The Madman. It is based on the fascinating story of the origins of the Oxford English Dictionary, focusing on the contributions of and the relationship between the editor James Murray and William Chester Minor. Minor is in a prison for the "criminally insane" as a result of a murder he committed.

I found it quite striking and beautiful is how the issue of forgiveness and redemption thread through the story. How can a murderer find redemption? Can his victim's family forgive him?

How should churches relate to the world?

My family enjoyed watching the movie, The Two Popes. It focuses on a speculative history of the personal relationship between the two most recent popes, Benedict and Francis. It highlights their contrasting backgrounds (Germany vs. Argentina, Rich world vs. Majority world), theologies (traditional and conservative vs. less traditional and flexible), lifestyles (ostentatious vs. simple), and leadership styles (aloof vs. personable), ...
In spite of these significant differences, they are able to build a personal relationship built on mutual respect, appreciation, and companionship.


I found the following four things about the movie most striking and valuable.

First, there is a strong message of how personal failure and regret can be redeemed by the grace and mercy of Christ, following the confession of sin.

Second, the Western world is so different from the Majority World. The West is characterised by prosperity, political stability, peace, secularism, and declining churches. In contrast, the Majority World is characterised by poverty, political instability, violence, spirituality, and growing churches. This is powerfully portrayed by flashbacks that Pope Francis has about his past, particularly the violent repression that occurred during the military dictatorship in Argentina in the 1970s. Here I beg to differ with A.O. Scott, the New York Times critic who said

If “The Two Popes” had consisted entirely of two old men talking, it might have been a masterpiece. But the conversation is interrupted by flashbacks that chronicle Bergoglio’s early life, as a young scientist called to the priesthood and as head of the Jesuit order in Argentina during the military dictatorship of the 1970s.

Third, the humanity of both men and their relationship is moving, and even endearing. This occurs in spite of their differences, which begin with harsh words for each other.

Finally, the movie captures many of the tragic failures of the churches through history, both Catholic and Protestant: seduction by wealth, power, and pomp; worship of church leaders by their members, anachronisms (talking in Latin!), sexual abuse of children, covering up scandals, being more concerned about public image than integrity, ....

Highly recommended!

Anger and isolation in the city

I enjoyed watching the movie Can you ever forgive me? based on the life of Lee Israel, a struggling writer who found "success" by forging and selling personal letters from famous authors.

 

The lead character is played well by Melissa McCarthy, who I am more used to seeing play buffoons.
It is a great story. But the movie also catches some of the angst, internal struggles, alienation, and anger of someone who is so alone because they just cannot get along with others.
God's ideal is that we live in community but we are too often our own worst enemies. We yearn for this too but others disappoint us and hurt us and so we lash out in anger and the spiral continues...
The cycle is only broken when grace, mercy, and forgiveness breaks through.

Yearning for forgiveness, redemption, and justice

Western societies today present a paradox. Truth and morality are said to be relative and contextual. But in reality, people seem to be more passionate than ever about what they think is right, whether in politics or social behaviour.

David Brooks has a fascinating column in the New York Times, The Strange Persistence of Guilt. Here are a couple of extracts.

American life has secularized and grand political ideologies have fallen away, but moral conflict has only grown. In fact, it’s the people who go to church least — like the members of the alt-right — who seem the most fervent moral crusaders....Sin is a stain, a weight and a debt. But at least religions offer people a path from self-reflection and confession to atonement and absolution. Mainstream culture has no clear path upward from guilt, either for individuals or groups. So you get a buildup of scapegoating, shaming and Manichaean condemnation. 

Why can't we escape this yearning for righteousness, justice, and redemption?
It seems to be hard-wired into us.

Honour, shame, and the Gospel

The Gospel of Jesus transcends culture. Nevertheless, communicating it and living it out does take different forms in different cultures. This video nicely presents the Gospel that may be more meaningful in cultures in which honour and shame play a central role.

What is so amazing about science? What is so amazing about Jesus?

Here are the slides for the talk I am giving tomorrow at Jesus Week, organised by a student Christian group.

I will not apologise!

"I was wrong. I am sorry."
These are six words that are very hard to say.
I struggle to say them. Individuals struggle to say them. Institutions struggle to say them. Countries struggle to say them.
Yet newspapers are full of articles about people asking for apologies and others refusing to give them.

Recently at the Oxford Union there was a debate about whether Britain does owe reparations for colonial rule.
The video below is a powerful speech by Shashi Tharoor in support of an apology.



It is interesting to contrast this reluctance to apologise to the amazing actions of Zacchaeus, inspired by Jesus, who offered four-fold reparations.

An amazing story about Jesus

Next week I am giving a talk, "What is so amazing about science? What is so amazing about Jesus?", as part of Jesus Week organised by a student Christian group at the University of Queensland.
In the first half of the talk I will cover some of the material in a talk, "Why is science so awesome?" that I gave earlier this year at Theology on Tap. It highlights how the success of science raises questions that science cannot answer. We have to look elsewhere for answers for questions about meaning and purpose. I find that Jesus answers those questions.

I will then look at just one story about Jesus that I think is amazing: his encounter with a rich man, recounted in Luke 19.

[Jesus] entered Jericho and was passing through. 2 And behold, there was a man named Zacchaeus. He was a chief tax collector and was rich. 3 And he was seeking to see who Jesus was, but on account of the crowd he could not, because he was small in stature. 4 So he ran on ahead and climbed up into a sycamore tree to see him, for he was about to pass that way. 5 And when Jesus came to the place, he looked up and said to him, “Zacchaeus, hurry and come down, for I must stay at your house today.” 6 So he hurried and came down and received him joyfully. 7 And when they saw it, they all grumbled, “He has gone in to be the guest of a man who is a sinner.” 8 And Zacchaeus stood and said to the Lord, “Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor. And if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I restore it fourfold.” 9 And Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, since he also is a son of Abraham.10 For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.”

What is so amazing?

Jesus seeks everyone and can save anyone. It does not matter what your background and personal history. race, gender, wealth, education, social status, .....
Zacchaeus would have been despised as a collaborator of the Roman rulers and an exploiter of people, extracting as much money as he could. The crowd was right. He was a sinner. Yet that did not matter to Jesus.
On the other hand, Zacchaeus humbled himself in order to seek out Jesus. Today you rarely see rich and powerful people running through the streets, climbing trees, making public apologies seeking restitution, and giving away half their money. This reflects Jesus charisma. He inspires people to totally change and do radical things. Jesus still does that today.

The story can be contrasted to that in Luke 18:18-30 concerning the rich young ruler who would not give up his wealth to follow Jesus. Jesus said,
“How difficult it is for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God! For it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.” 

Here we see it can happen.

Who am I in the story? Zacchaeus or a member of the crowd? or both?

Jesus seeks, saves, and sanctifies (transforms).

Three amazing and unbelievable things about Easter

Today I am giving a talk at our churches' Easter Eggstravaganza, an event for children and families. Here is the talk.

Just because something is hard to believe does not mean that it is not true. My experience as a scientist tells me that. Many scientific discoveries have been unexpected, surprising, and go against what people thought was common sense.
[Aside: for adults interested in science: examples include Schrodinger's cat (quantum entanglement), the Big Bang, Dark matter,...]
I still find some of these things hard to believe.

I will now do a simple science experiment to show this. Putting a skewer through a balloon and putting a flame on a balloon containing a small amount of water.

At Easter Christians celebrate the death and the resurrection of Jesus.
Here are three things that many people rightly find hard to believe about Easter.

Could an all powerful God die on a cross?
Can God really forgive sins?
Did Jesus really rise from the dead? Is that possible?

I find these three things amazing.

1. Could an all powerful God die on a cross?

The Bible tells us that Jesus was God's Son. God the Father and Jesus together made the whole universe. They both rule over it. Jesus was powerful. He could heal sick people, know what people were thinking, and walk on water. He taught about what God was really like, because He really knew God as His Father.
Yet if Jesus was so strong and powerful how could he be so weak and powerless that he allowed his enemies to falsely accuse him of wrongdoing and to kill him on a cross, a terribly painful and embarrassing death? Couldn't he stop them? He could not save himself. How could he claim to save others?

2.  Can God really forgive any and every wrong that someone has done?

Jesus told an interesting story about this. In the Bible you can find it in Matthew 19. There was a rich young man who really wanted to go to heaven. He told Jesus all the good things he had done in his life. But, Jesus asked him to do something that was very difficult for him: give away all his money. This was too hard for him. He loved his money more than he loved God. Indeed Jesus has very high standards. He wants us to be perfect. Jesus disciples, his 12 closest friends, wondered if anyone could be saved. It seemed no one could be good enough for Jesus or for God. In response, Jesus said, "With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible." (Matthew 19:26)
Jesus death on the cross makes this possible. His suffering covers all of our failings and wrong doings.
This is fantastic news for us. It does not matter what we have done, God can forgive us, if we want to be forgiven.

3. Did Jesus really rise from the dead? Is that possible?
That is a miracle. Can a scientist like me believe in miracles?

After all, history and experience tell us once people are dead they are dead forever. But just because we have not seen something happen does not mean that it can never happen. Again, God can make the impossible happen.

I then do the following simple science demonstration.
Consider an egg and a small bottle. Who thinks that this egg can fit in this bottle? Before I saw this happen I never thought it was possible.

Just because we think dead people stay dead forever, does not mean that Jesus did not rise from the dead. If God, the ruler of the universe, what it to happen it could. It did.

On Easter Sunday Christians celebrate Jesus' resurrection. Jesus conquered death, came to life and appeared to many eyewitnesses, and now lives forever.

So, tomorrow on Easter Sunday when you are eating all your yummy chocolate eggs think about this egg in the bottle. It doesn’t look too yummy. But it does illustrate that something can be true even if we don’t expect it to be. God is not constrained by the laws of nature us scientists know all about. Jesus really did rise from the dead. He has power over death and sin. What is impossible for man is possible for God. God raised Jesus from death to life. We can be forgiven and we can have the gift of eternal life.

Forgiveness and liberation

My wife and I enjoyed watching Mandela: Long walk to freedom
Here are a few impressions.

It is tragic to see the inhumanity of humanity. In order to stoke racism, prejudice, and maintain power and privilege, the powerful will intimidate and humiliate their opponents: from draconian laws to random house searches to solitary confinement to taunting by prison guards. These silly psychological games are not just games and thuggishness but sometimes well thought out strategies to squelch dissent.

The double standard of violence. When governments and police use it against their own citizens to "maintain law and order" it is claimed to be justified, legitimate, and moral. When others use violence in a desperate response to oppression it is deemed to be unjustified, illegitimate, and immoral.

Ultimately pragmatic economic considerations [the potential collapse of the South African stock market] forced the government into negotiations with Mandela. To me this highlights the positive influence of the divestment movement on university campuses in the USA and the value of the Sullivan principles.

The "impossible" does happen. Only 30 years ago, the end of the Soviet Union and apartheid seemed inconceivable. But the end did come.

But most striking was Mandela's ability and willingness to forgive, extend grace, and move on, working for the good of the country.

Music in hell

War is hell: hate, broken relationships, violence, death, suffering, humiliation, evil, injustice, ....

I felt this again watching Paradise Road. It is based on the true story of women in a prisoner of war camp during WWII. To cope they form a vocal orchestra, that unites them, gives them dignity, and makes some emotional connection with their Japanese captors.

One noteable line concerns different attitudes towards the guards who often humiliated the women. One woman asks another [a missionary], "Why don't you hate them?".
"I can only feel sorry for them."

It raised many of the issues discussed by Miroslav Wolf, in "Exclusion and Embrace." How do the abused respond to their abusers?

Muddling through life

I watched The Descendants, starring George Clooney in an uncharacteristically "uncool" role, as a struggling father and husband.
I enjoyed it but do find myself uncomfortable being a "voyeur" watching other people's pain and family problems, particularly when they are believable.

Unlike most Hollywood movies, it portrayed marriage, family, and fidelity in a positive light. At end I thought there was a strong message about the need for forgiveness.

An interesting review by Roger Ebert highlights the connections between the development of Clooney's character as a father and a custodian of the land.

The top 5 regrets of the dying

The Guardian has an interesting article The top 5 regrets of the dying. Perhaps they are not surprising, but they are good reminders about some important things. I was also struck of the strong desire for forgiveness, again illustrating people have an innate sense of right and wrong.
I thank my wife for bringing the article to my attention.

5 types of argument for the existence of God II

The group discussion on this topic a week ago was helpful to me. Here are a few additional thoughts.

The moral argument.
People have an innate sense of right and wrong. Where does that come from?
Related to this is that people have a very strong sense of justice. Even atheists who deny an absolute sense of morality cry out about injustices, to them or to others, and demand that justice be done.
Where does this sense of justice come from?
Humans also have a strong desire for forgiveness and redemption. Sometimes this is only on the subconscious level, but it can be a strong force in many lives, featuring in many secular movies.

The argument from religious experience.
God exists because I have experienced him.
An alternative version is that many people have (or claim to have) experienced God in some way. What is the basis for those experiences? Could it be that God actually does exist?

A weakness and oversight of the 5 traditional arguments is that they do not consider and argument, that I actually consider to be the strongest argument for the exsitence of God.
This is the argument from history and the New Testament. It can be argued to contain reliable eyewitness accounts of the life of Jesus. But, did he really rise from the dead? Consider how the lives of his disciples were transformed: from confused cowards to bold and courageous preachers who were willing to die for their belief that he did rise. A lie, conspiracy, or delusion is unlikely to produce such passion and perseverance.