What is a university for?

Universities have changed dramatically over the course of my lifetime—a lifetime which has included 9 years as a student and 32 years as an academic, across 6 universities in Australia and the USA. Australian universities are receiving increasing media attention due to failures in management and governance, including a recent ABC Four Corners documentary.  Numerous books by academics lament the state of Australian universities.  They appear to be all about four M's: money, marketing, management, and metrics. Learning, understanding, and discovery for its own sake seems alien and marginalised. Questions that need more attention include What is a university for? and What values should a university embody? In the New College Lectures for 2025 Peter Harrison went much deeper than the public debates and considered the role of secularisation, values, and virtues. 

This is the beginning of an article I wrote What is a university for? A Christian Vision for the Modern Secular University 

CASE subscribers can read a nicely formatted, illustrated, and hyperlinked article here.

Embodiments of competing visions of the Christian faith

 I have always wanted to read the classic novel The Brothers Karamazov by Dostoevsky, but have been deterred by its length. I am attracted by the way it weaves deep philosophical and theological debates into a narrative about murder. Each of the characters presents competing positions.

Well, popular culture just presented me with something similar: the movie, Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery.

On one level, this is a classic murder mystery, being the third in the Knives Out franchise featuring the eccentric detective Benoit Blanc.

Note: if you have not seen the movie, this post does not contain any spoilers.

Four distinct competing philosophical and theological positions are associated with the movie.

Atheistic rationalism. This denies any spiritual realities (naturalism), elevates reason, and claims that Christianity is "just a story" that provides comfort to desperate people. This view is espoused by the detective Benoit Blanc.

Culture war Christianity. The world is divided into good and evil. Sexual immorality is destroying society. Increasing secularisation in the Western world has led to the decline of Christendom. The USA is no longer a Christian nation. Christians need to fight back. Desperate times require desperate measures. The end justifies the means. The dominant emotions expressed and used to control people are fear, anger, judgment, power, and shame. This vision of Christianity is embodied in the priest, Jefferson Wicks. Another character, a social media influencer, sees this culture war as the basis for a successful political career.

Jesus-centric Christianity.  That term is a tautology, as surely the word "Christianity" means it is centred on Jesus Christ! But I use the term to contrast it with "Culture war Christianity". Significant elements of Jesus life and teaching were love, forgiveness, compassion, mercy, and hospitality. He was a friend of sinners, tax collectors, and prostitutes. In fact, his biggest opponents were the Pharisees, religious leaders who were exclusive, angry, self-righteous, legalistic, and desperately wanted to reclaim the power and status of their nation. In the movie, the character who is all about Jesus-centric Christianity is the young priest, Jud Duplenticy.

In the clip below, Jud debates Benoit.

There are also some powerful scenes where Jud debates Jefferson. Unfortunately, I could not find a clip of those. You will have to watch the movie. There is a good one beginning around 27 minutes into the Netflix version.

There is another competing vision of Christianity.

A generic humanistic spirituality. This espouses the values of love, forgiveness, grace, mercy, and compassion. Jesus is seen as a nice example of this, and the church as a community that can practise these values. It is described as "faith", but the object of the faith is not clear. It seems to be a belief that if people just look into their hearts, they will find a goodness that will enable them to live out the values. The historical basis for Christianity and traditional doctrines are overlooked or seen as outdated or irrelevant. In particular, the divinity of Jesus, the sinful nature of humanity, the significance of Jesus death on the cross, repentance, and the power of the Holy Spirit to transform people are not considered fundamental. Jesus does provide an amazing and inspiring example of human compassion, mercy, and forgiveness. However, he does so much more. He calls on his followers to repent of their sin. His death is the basis for us to forgive others. We forgive because he forgave us. We love because he loved us.

I did not see this vision represented by a character in the movie. However, many reviews of the movie seem to see Jud as representing this vision.

The video below presents a nice analysis of the movie [including spoilers], but presents Jud's faith as generic, rather than Jesus-centric.

 

This article has helpful background on the writer and director of the movie.

Rian Johnson’s Explains How His Religious Upbringing Inspired ‘Wake Up Dead Man’

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)

Following Jesus in the 21st Century

I have finished reading a book by Eugene Peterson that I find helpful, enthralling, and challenging.

Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places: A Conversation in Spiritual Theology

Why am I enthralled? Peterson has a way with words, carefully crafting sentences and paragraphs that are both easy to read and profound. The book resonates with much I have personally been observing, learning, and thinking about. The book is challenging because it exposes many of my own struggles and weaknesses, and those of the Christian communities, from the local to the global, that I am a part of or have been involved in over the years.

The title of the book, "Christ plays in ten thousand places" is taken from a line in the poem As Kingfishers Catch Fire by Gerard Manley Hopkins.

A few things that stand out are the following.

The basics matter

Love God and Love others. It can't get "simpler" than that!

Basic concepts: creation, sin, redemption, judgement, Trinity,...

Basic practices and habits: Bible reading, prayer, holy communion, fellowship, reading literature, Sabbath, meals together, hospitality,... We need to do these in an intentional, disciplined, and regular way, and be mindful of their profound theological meaning and significance.

Cultural pressures will choke or derail the Christian life, individually and corporately: individualism, consumerism, pragmatism, immediacy, managerialism, competition, efficiency, functionalism, ...

Most of these pressures derive from living in a capitalist society that is unrelenting in shaping our thinking, desires, and actions. I need this thing. I desire this thing. I will buy this thing.

Abstractions distract. We have a natural tendency to favour the abstract and impersonal over the concrete and personal. But the story of God's action recorded in the Bible is one of particularity of times, places, and persons: Abraham, Moses, David, Isaiah, Jesus, Peter, Paul, ...

It is a story, not an academic philosophical treatise. The Triune God is not a philosophical concept or an impersonal being but rather three persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Church is not an abstract concept. Churches are Christian communities of particular persons with particular life histories, relationships, struggles, sins, joys, ... Community is complex and messy.

Be rooted in a time and place. Peterson gives a profound and creative exposition of Genesis 1 and 2. The six days of creation and the seventh day of rest define the reality of the rhythm of life. The Garden and the Promised Land are specific places, highlighting our need to be rooted in a particular place. We are not to be nomads, literal or spiritual.

Here is a small selection of quotations.

“If we don't know where we are going, any road will get us there. But if we have a destination - in this case a life lived to the glory of God - there is a well-marked way, the Jesus-revealed Way. 

Spiritual theology is the attention that we give to the details of living life on this way. It is a protest against theology depersonalized into information about God; it is a protest against theology functionalized into a program of strategic planning for God.”

“God’s great love and purposes for us are all worked out in messes in our kitchens and backyards, in storms and sins, blue skies, the daily work and dreams of our common lives. God works with us as we are and not as we should be or think we should be.”

It is all about Jesus! 

“Jesus prevents us from thinking that life is a matter of ideas to ponder or concepts to discuss. Jesus saves us from wasting our lives in the pursuit of cheap thrills and trivializing diversions. Jesus enables us to take seriously who we are and where we are without being seduced by the intimidating lies and illusions that fill the air, so that we needn't be someone else or somewhere else. Jesus keeps our feet on the ground, attentive to children, in conversation with ordinary people, sharing meals with friends and strangers, listening to the wind, observing the wildflowers, touching the sick and wounded, praying simply and unselfconsciously. Jesus insists that we deal with God right here and now, in the place we find ourselves and with the people we are with. Jesus is God here and now.”

The Christian life, individual and corporate, happens in the context of a specific culture. In the West, this culture is dominated by the ideology of the market.

“We live in a culture that has replaced soul with self. This reduction turns people into either problems or consumers. Insofar as we acquiesce in that replacement, we gradually but surely regress in our identity, for we end up thinking of ourselves and dealing with others in marketplace terms: everyone we meet is either a potential recruit to join our enterprise or a potential consumer for what we are selling; or we ourselves are the potential recruits and consumers. Neither we nor our friends have any dignity just as we are, only in terms of how we or they can be used.”

Here the Church and the Gospel of Jesus offer a counter-cultural liberating message: human identity and worth is intrinsic and independent of the whims and ideology of the market. 

Living out the Gospel while immersed in a neighbourhood in a secular city

Last week at the theology reading group we discussed Forming Christian Communities in a Secular Age: Recovering Humility and Hope by Tim Dickau.

Three narratives are inter-weaved throughout the book: the personal, the congregational, and the socio-structural. Dickau describes his recent recovery from burnout and alcohol abuse after three decades as pastor of Grandview Church in Vancouver, Canada. During this time the church moved from a declining "commuter" church to a vibrant and creative community that was engaged with and in solidarity with its local neighbourhood. This led to significant relationships with marginalised neighbours, including the homeless, refugees, and the poor. In collaboration with local community organisations, the church birthed several social enterprises, including converting the church parking lot into a low-income housing project. 

The more theoretical dimension of the book is the analysis of the social secular character of large cities in the Western world. Here there is substantial engagement with the philosopher Charles Taylor and his books, This Secular Age (2007) and Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity (1989). Dickau also engages with the theologians William Cavanaugh and Willie James Jennings.

With regard to secularism, it is important to be clear on terminology. Taylor considers three distinct forms of secularism, focusing on the third form.

Moreover, both belief and non-belief have become optional, contested, and pressured so that believers and non-believers alike are “fragilized,” where expressions of both belief and unbelief are regularly challenged and therefore not as

certain (20–27). In this new age, we all live with “cross-pressures”

(15), where any believer, atheist, or anything in-between will be challenged by sensible people who think differently

Taylor defines the social imaginary as “. . . the way ordinary people imagine their social surroundings, and this is often not expressed in theoretical terms, it is carried in images, stories, and legends.” (172).

The social imaginary for this secular age is an immanent frame that by assumption precludes any role for transcendence. Dickau helpfully calls this "functional atheism," suggesting that today many clergy and church members operate within a framework where everything is framed, even if subconsciously, in terms of human action. This is reflected in church "business" meetings, strategic plans, policies and procedures that are strikingly similar to those of modern business corporations. 

I greatly appreciate this book. Dickau embodies honesty and humility. It is written by someone who has spent decades in the trenches and does not shy away from the complexity and messiness of life, ministry, mission, community, politics, and relationships. Dickau is able to weave the three narratives (personal, communal, socio-structural) together with some synergy, as each one increases the credibility of the others.

I found three ideas in the book personally challenging. The greatest challenge was realising the extent that which I operate in an immanent frame. Too often I am a functional atheist.

The discussions about racism draw on the writing of Willie Jennings and Grandview's engagement with First Nations people issues locally and nationally. I need to wrestle with this issue more.

Dickau advocates a commitment to place, i.e., a local neighbourhood. This stability is counter-cultural and necessary for lasting change. Will I make such a commitment? My wife and I are aiming for that through our involvement with Village Mosaix, as part of Village Church in Brisbane.

Here are some specific things that I appreciate about the book.

a. Dickau's honesty and vulnerability could be a wake-up call for many church leaders. Many tend to "workaholism" and some congregations enable this. These issues resonate with those identified by Pete Scazzero in Emotionally Healthy Church. 

b. The descriptions of Grandview activities provide concrete models that may inspire other churches to emulate, provided there is sufficient adaptation to local context. Dickau stresses this latter point. I was inspired by the account of how the activities of Kinbrace in refugee advocacy did not just help some in the local neighbourhood but eventually led to changes in Canadian government policies and procedures.

c. Seeking the welfare of the city. Seek the common good. Dickau is inspired by Jeremiah 29. This goes against the natural tendency of churches to be like most human institutions and to be parochial and inward-looking. [Although I agree with the conclusion, I would like to see this concern with the common good, justified by some New Testament passages.]

d. Practical care for the marginalised.

e. Grandview fosters creativity. This is done by tapping into the energy, gifts, experience, and passions of the laity.

f. Respect for tradition without slavery to it. Grandview is a Baptist church, but was once characterised as "Bapto-Catholic". It does not appear to be constrained by narrow denominationalism.

g. Beyond an individualistic Gospel and mission. Confession, repentance, and action need to be at the individual, corporate (congregational), and systemic levels. This is integral mission. I appreciate this for two reasons. Foremost, this is how mission is presented in the Bible, from ancient Israel to the early church, as nicely documented by Chris Wright. Second, as a scientist who studies emergence in complex systems, I often argue that issues, whether mental health or poverty alleviation, must be addressed at multiple levels, from the individual to the societal.

Although there is much to admire about the book, here are a few reservations.

Is the book too Taylor-centric?

I am no expert on Taylor, having only read the potted version, How (not) to be secular by James K.A. Smith. I greatly admire Taylor, particularly because as a distinguished academic, A Secular Age, has created waves in the academy, particularly in the humanities and social sciences. Nevertheless, I have many questions and concerns about Taylor and the amount of authority he is given. Taylor is a philosopher, not a historian or a social scientist. I wonder whether the historical narrative is really as simple as he presents. Similarly, I wonder if secularisation is actually thicker, more complex, and diverse than Taylor presents, particularly when one considers multi-cultural neighbourhoods. As a Catholic, does Taylor lay too much "blame" on the Reformation for fostering secularism and destroying enchantment? 

Is Taylor wistful for a former age, such as Christendom? Does his work foment the desires of those who pine for an earlier age that actually may never have existed? Does it feed the fantasies of those who want to "Make America Great Again"?

Arguably, secularisation, in some of its forms, is not always bad. Sometimes maybe it is the best, albeit imperfect, solution to a complex problem for democracies in pluralistic societies. It has kept at bay religious wars, theocracies, and kept pseudo-sciences such as young-earth creationism and Vedic "science" out of public school systems.

Given these concerns is Taylor really essential to the arguments of the book? Could we get to the same point as Dickau, with regard to missiology and ecclesiology, by just going back to the radical teachings of Jesus and the radical lifestyle of the early church? In some ways, Dickau does head in this direction when he discusses the potential of the "new monasticism" movement.

A problematic identification of "the powers of this dark world"?

Two thousand years of church history might suggest that Christians are not good at cultural analysis, particularly with regard to identifying what elements of their current culture is a result of the work of God's Spirit, or of Satan, or of human rebellion, or the "spiritual forces of evil." Perhaps indicative of the lack of nuance is the three options presented by Reinhold Niebuhr in his highly influential Christ and Culture: Christ in Culture, Christ against Culture, and Christ above Culture.

Dickau identifies the following "powers of our secular age": individualism, consumerism, economic globalisation, racism, inequality, and the human-induced climate crisis.

I agree that all of these are important issues. I am very concerned about each and all can embody evil. But, I am nervous about having a completely negative characterisation of the first three "powers." Subtlety is needed. For example, consider globalisation. I agree that globalisation has had many negative consequences. But, one can argue that it has lifted hundreds of millions of people, especially in India and China, out of poverty. I do lament the corrosive effect of individualism on the West. However, it's opposite, communitarianism can also have negative effects. Consider a young Asian woman is living in the West. She may be positive about the individual freedom she has to change her religion, choose her spouse, and employment.

The Bible presents an ambivalent picture of money, sex, power, authority, freedom, knowledge, speech, and emotions. They are neither intrinsically good nor evil. Thus, it is reasonable to be ambivalent about culture and institutions, whether in science, technology, government, education, military, or business. Each can be a good gift from God that can be used to bless others. Each can also be distorted and twisted by sin (individual, corporate, and structural). They can then be used as instruments of violence, oppression, slavery, and idolatry.

Charles Ringma pointed out to our group that Karl Barth was ambivalent about the nation-state. Perhaps this is surprising because Barth experienced the nation-state in the evil form of Nazi Germany.

There is an essay "Karl Barth’s theological politics", by David Haddorf, that was published as a new introduction to Community, State and Church: Three Essays, by Karl Barth. Haddorf states.

Barth develops a political perspective based entirely upon God’s action in and through the revelation of the Word of God. His commitment to the word of God led him to be a dialectical thinker moving between absolute Yes and No, between absolute positive or negative views of the state, between absolute Christian claims of the legitimacy of the state and anarchial denial of legitimacy, between Marxist socialism and free-market capitalism, and between right-wing nationalism and left- wing revolutionary politics.

Similarly, I embrace a good-bad dialectic with regard to much that our complex world presents. Holding the concepts of Creation and Fall together presents a paradox. They must be held in tension. On the one hand, the created world is good. On the other hand, it is corrupted and “groans for redemption.” (Romans 8:19-22). This is a world of sin, death, disease, natural disasters, and of altruism. Common grace is everywhere. On the one hand, humans bear the image of God, including innate rationality, relationality, morality, and spirituality. On the other hand, this image has been marred by sin. Paul’s personal moral struggles (Romans 7:23) also reflect the human paradox. It requires great wisdom and discernment to correctly identify any specific human activity as a power aligned with the forces of darkness.

Unfortunately, hard copies of the book are only available in Canada. I do hope this will change soon as the book deserves a global readership. Electronic (Kindle) copies can be bought on Amazon.

To complement reading the book I recommend an interview with Dickau in a recent podcast episode.

What is a university for?

On Saturday I am giving a talk in Sydney on this question at the annual Write conference organised by the Simeon Network of Christian academics. The talk is based on a paper that will appear in June in the journal IFES Word and World.

Two papers that are helpful were written by Professor David Ford of Cambridge.
They are here and  here.

What does theology have to do with a secular university?

I was asked to write an article ``What is a university for?'' for the journal IFES Word and World. Here is the current version. Comments welcome.
Here is a good video introduction.

Institutions, virtue, secularism, and human flourishing

A week ago I attended a fascinating meeting, on “Science, Philosophy, Religion and Human Flourishing” in Cyprus. It brought together about thirty scientists, philosophers, diplomats, people with a range of religious convictions and none.
The sessions were structured as follows. First, three or four speakers gave 7.5-minute talks around a common theme or issue. The talks were meant to stimulate discussion. Then we broke out into small groups of about six people for about 30 minutes of discussion, and then all the participants came together for group discussion. I will post later about some of the things I was challenged on.

Here are the slides for my 7.5-minute talk, ``The role of institutions in human flourishing: challenges and potential''. I was pleasantly surprised at how a range of people said the talk was helpful and stimulating.

Who decides whether a woman is "free" or "oppressed"?

I read a fascinating New York Times article
The College Student Who Has France’s Secularists Fulminating,
which describes how Maryam Pougetoux, a student leader has caused offense because she wore a traditional head scarf when interviewed on TV about student protests.
Some secularists considered it inconsistent with her being president of a student union and with advocacy of the progressive and feminist values she stands for.
Critics seem focused on her clothes rather than what she said.

In such discussions I wonder about whether some women in the Western world are really free?

There is incredible social pressure (from both men and women) for women wear make up, high heels, revealing clothing, and adopt certain poses. Some women freely choose such options, others do so out of compulsion, whether consciously or sub-consciously.

This cartoon is by Malcolm Evans 

The article about the french controversy is interesting to juxtapose with a recent article in The Australian newspaper, Race, gender politics swamp great debate, Controversy has arisen because the Sydney University Debating Society has introduced gender-based quotas for their teams.

The article features the photograph below of a student who supported the quotas. 

Guest post: What is real?

My dear wife has written the following post.

From time spent in India I am more aware of the existence of the spiritual world. In the West we tend to discredit things that aren’t tangible, things that can’t be touched or measured – for the sake of being “educated” and "rational". We have disqualified the spiritual for the sake of the material, things that we can not see for things that we thing are quantifiable and "real".

That makes me angry – this cultural blindness is like wearing shackles that I never asked for.

In most of India you can’t go far without running into a shrine or temple. To most Indians, there is no question that there is a spiritual world. Even some physicists consult the astrological calendar to pick an audacious date for their daughters wedding. I am not saying this is a good thing. The question isn’t so much “is there a god?” but rather “which gods will I honour?” We might argue about which is farther from the truth – living as if there are no gods or sacrificing to false gods? Yet the difference is striking.

As a Christian it is refreshing that the reality of the spiritual realm is affirmed by a society. It becomes easier to set one’s heart and mind on things above, not on earthly things. The dark side also is true, I’m more aware of the spiritual warfare surrounding us, and that our struggle isn’t against flesh and blood but against the spiritual forces of evil. The problems of our age can’t be solved by argument but need prayer and fasting.

I pray that God would help me to hold onto this awareness before it recedes into the Western norm. Help me to remember this world needs people honouring You with their lives – not an over emphasis on material things or analytical arguments seeking a perfect answer.

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.

The meaning and significance of the secular

In the theology reading group this month we discussed
How (not) to be Secular: Reading Charles Taylor, by James K.A. Smith
The 140 page book is a synopsis of the 900 page tome  A Secular Age, by  Charles Taylor. It makes that work more accessible, particularly through the glossary at the end of the book.
Previously, I discussed the three senses of the secular. Other important terms include the following.

Immanent frame.
A constructed social space what frames our lives entirely within a natural (rather than supernatural) order. It is the circumscribed space of the modern social imaginary that precludes transcendence.
The influence of this term is indicated by the existence of a multi-author academic blog with this title.

Modern Moral Order.
"A new understanding of morality that focuses on the organisation of society  for mutual benefit rather than an obligation to "higher" or eternal norms.  The "moral" is bound up with (and perhaps reduced to) the "economic.""
Although, not explicitly named neoliberalism seems the extreme and problematic embodiment of this.

Spin.
A construal of life within the immanent frame that does not recognise itself as a construal and thus has no room to grant plausibility to the alternative.

Take.
A construal of life within the immanent frame that is open to appreciating the viability of other takes. Can be wither "closed" (immanentist) or "open" (to transcendence).

It refreshing and encouraging to see such a towering intellect highlight how many views that masquerade as "truth" or "well established" or "conventional wisdom" are just a "take" or "spin".

Some say that Karl Barth's Epistle to the Romans was like a hand grenade lobbed into the world of academic theology. Perhaps Taylor's tome is like a hand grenade lobbed into the secular academy, particular the humanities and social sciences. 

To me the book is highly original, stimulating, and challenging.
It helps understand how we got so secular. Furthermore, the church is secular. 
Some church and mission organisation statements, strategies, and practices may appear to be not that different from Walmart: a focus on money, marketing, growth, efficiency, and numbers...
But it is more than that. It is not just "worldliness" but a whole epistemology and approach to life.

Unfortunately, the rise of secularism was an unintended consequence of the Reformation. For example, if you think of the sacrament in purely material terms or the work of the butcher and the candlestick maker as similar to the priest or monk this does have flow on effects. This led to the disenchantment of nature [a key to the development of science] and life. "the Reformers rejection of sacramentalism is the beginning of naturalism, or at least opens the door to its possibility." (page 39).

Many apologetic strategies, particularly in response to the New Atheism, are conducted on the ground rules layed down by secularists: evidence, logic, rationality, science, .....
imagination, art, story, history, transcendence, emotion, .... don't get a look in.

" ...the responses to this diminishment of transcendence accede to it in important ways... God is reduced to a Creator and religion to morality ... the particularities of a specific Christian belief are diminished to try to secure a more generic deity - as if saving some sort of transcendence will suffice..." (page 51).

I do have a few reservations about the book. Taylor appears to have little engagement with the Tri-une God or little substantial theology. Although deism is decried, most of the discussion is in terms of deism. There is no acknowledge or engagement with the non-Western world. Perhaps because Taylor appears to be a liberal Catholic, there is little discussion of the Lordship of Christ, the prophetic voice to society, and a call for repentance.

Three senses of the secular

What does it mean to be secular?
Secular means different things to different people.

In his book, How (not) to be secular, James K.A. Smith gives three distinct definitions of "secular".

secular_1 
"the earthly plane of domestic life"
This is the "classical" or "historical" definition, and distinguishes the secular from the sacred, i.e. the domain of priests. "butchers, bakers, and candlestick makers carry out "secular" work. To early reformers such as Luther this was positive. There was to be no distinction between the sacred and the secular.

secular_2
"the areligious - neutral, unbiased, objective"
This is a "modern" definition. It is particularly used in claims that the "public square", i.e. politics and public debate should be "free" from discussions about religion or religious values and perspectives.

secular_3
This is the notion of Charles Taylor, who in A Secular Age, says it
 “consists, among other things, of a move from a society where belief in God is unchallenged and indeed unproblematic to one in which it is understood to be one option among others, and frequently not the easiest to embrace”.