My ambivalence towards Tim Winton novels

At the conference today Roberta Kwan gave a fascinating paper on the theological dimensions to Tim Winton's novel Cloudstreet. This is a classic Australian novel and Roberta did a great job teasing out the "authorial intent" [within the framework of Kevin van Hoozer' theological hermeneutics] of the novel.

For a while I read quite a few of Winton's novels and enjoyed them, but I eventually found them too dark and too ambiguous. Two years ago I read Breath but I found the content too disturbing, but I know I am missing a lot. A post by Ben Myers extracts a section which shows both the subtlety, profundity, and disruptive character which I find so characteristic of Winton.

Evaluating the evidence for the resurrection of Jesus

At the conference on the Church and the Academy last night, Neil Foster from the University of Newcastle School of Law gave a fascinating lecture, A Lawyer looks at the evidence for the resurrection of Jesus.

In the context of Australian law, particularly what evidence is admissible in court, he argued that if it came down to a court case, a judge would rule that Jesus rose from the dead.

A cute animation movie

Last night my wife and I watched a DVD of Alvin and the Chipmunks. It is very cute and harmless...

Should North Korea have been banned from the World Cup?

A Newsweek article makes a persuasive case that given North Korea's human rights abuses it should have been banned from the football World Cup in South Africa. It recounts how effective sports boycotts were in helping to bring about the end of apartheid in South Africa.

Talk on Barth and the science-theology dialogue

Today I worked on the slides for my talk, Barth's Doctrine of Creation: Implications for the theology-science dialogue that I will give later this week at the conference on the academy and the church.

It is always a challenge to condense a lot of material down to a few succinct ideas and quotes.

Any comments welcome.

Covenantal creation

Why is the world the way it is? Could it be different? If it is created what does it reflect about its creator?

In Karl Barth's Doctrine of Creation, he proposes that:

1. Creation is the external basis of the covenant

2. Covenant is the internal basis of the creation.

[For a brief summary by John Webster see this earlier post].

Here is some of what he says about the second point.

creation also has.. its internal basis.... what God has created was not just any reality -however perfect or wonderful- but that which is intrinsically determined as the exponent of His glory and for the corresponding service.
The fact that the covenant is the goal of creation is not something which is added later to the reality of the creature, as though the history of creation might equally have been succeeded by any other history. It already characterises creation itself and as such, and therefore the being and existence of the creature. The covenant whose history had still to commence was the covenant which, as the goal appointed for creation and the creature, made creation necessary and possible, and determined and limited the creature....
If creation was the external basis of the covenant, the latter was the internal basis of the former. If creation was the formal presupposition of the covenant, the latter was the material presupposition of the former. If creation takes precedence historically, the covenant does so in substance.

Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics 3.1, pages 232-233

Then, perhaps a natural consequence of this is that the orderliness of the creation, and particularly the reliability of physical laws, reflects the faithfulness of the creator.

Nationalism can blind us

I am a great beneficiary of the USA. My wife is from there and I received a fantastic graduate school and postdoctoral training there.

But I do have mixed feelings about it at times.

One thing Americans can at times be a little weak on is understanding other cultures and acknowledging that perhaps everything American (e.g., health care) is not the best in the world.

I recall my family being in the US for the 2006 football world cup and watching with great amusement as US commentators claimed that their goalkeeper Casey Keller really was the best in the world. [The fact that he had never played for any of the best clubs in the world was because... when you have the best defence in your league you do not need the best goalkeeper....]

Anyway, I thought this New York Times op-ed piece Feeling Bleu was a bit much. It seems to claim that the US has done better than France in the World Cup because the US has been so much better than France at integrating immigrants into their nation....

Just in case you have forgotten the fearsome opposition faced by the USA at the world cup, watch this video showing the goal which was crucial to them topping their group...