A space-time anomaly

This is not about black holes or the big bang!

In the sermon at church it was pointed out that the life of most Western Christians in the the twenty-first century is an anomaly, both in history and in geography. There were more martyrs in the twentieth century than there were in all centuries before. The norm for Christians is not health, wealth, and freedom to worship. Rather, it is suffering and persecution.

This is very much the world of The Revelation of John. Reading it with this background in mind is very helpful. Graeme Goldsworthy says:

At a time when many Christians were possibly quite literally running them for their lives he does not detain them with a closely argued theological treatise. Rather he draws from the familiar and fertile imagery of Jewish apocalyptic in order to paint vivid word pictures of the reality of the Kingdom of God. They are images that will stick in the mind and aid the recall of the basic truths of the Gospel.

Just generosity

I read an interesting article in The Week about an initiative of Bill Gates and Warren Buffett to get fellow billionaires to give away their wealth. It points out that potential gifts of the order of $6bn per year need to be compared to the $303bn in total annual private donations from US citizens. Through the article I became aware of a provocative opinion piece, The rich want a better world? Try paying fair wages and tax by Peter Wilby, originally published in The Guardian. Here are the last two paragraphs:

I repeat: we should welcome the Gates-Buffett initiative and applaud those who have joined it. Generous, public-spirited billionaires are preferable to mean ones. But remember that two-thirds of US corporations contrive to pay no federal income tax at all and that transfer pricing alone – a legal device, used, for instance, by Ellison's Oracle Corp, that converts sales in one country to profits in another where tax liabilities are low – deprives the US treasury of $60bn annually. Such sums, which pile more taxes on the poor and reduce funds for government projects that advance the public good, dwarf what the 40 billionaires propose to give away.

If the rich really wish to create a better world, they can sign another pledge: to pay their taxes on time and in full; to stop lobbying against taxation and regulation; to avoid creating monopolies; to give their employees better wages, pensions, job protection and working conditions; to make goods and use production methods that don't kill or maim or damage the environment or make people ill. When they put their names to that, there will be occasion not just for applause but for street parties.

This all reminded me of the passage in Luke 21:

Jesus looked up and saw the rich putting their gifts into the offering box, ²and he saw a poor widow put in two small copper coins. ³And he said, "Truly, I tell you, this poor widow has put in more than all of them. ⁴For they all contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty put in all she had to live on."

Would Jesus own an iPhone?

I was recently asked:

In what ways is a technology good or bad from a Christian perspective?

How should we approach the development of technology?

The pace and scope of new technological developments presents many ethical issues. Sometimes it is claimed that technologies such as internet, stem cells, drugs, in vitro fertilisation, nanotechnology, ... are so far from the culture and world of Biblical writers that we are in a moral vacuum. I agree we are in a "different world" in some sense but we are in the "same world" of human sin, aspirations to bless, greed, desire to heal, idolatry, love, ego, .....

Hence, I strongly disagree that the Bible is not adequate to address these issues.

I have found a helpful way to see this is to view money as technology. The Bible says a lot about money. It is intrinsically neither good nor evil. It can be used to bless others. It can facilitate an orderly and prosperous society. But,

For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils. It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs.

1 Timothy 6:10

I am hard pressed to think of a technology which is intrinsically good or intrinsically evil. The key issue is one of attitude. What is the ultimate purpose of it? Do people worship it? Can they not live without? Does it lead to greed and injustice? Is it used to heal and or bless?

Recommended TV series

Now that my family has finished watching all the seasons of The West Wing, we have been looking for alternative entertainment and stimulation. Two series we have started looking at are Home Improvement and Foyles War. The first is very funny and harmless. I used to watch it every week twenty years ago.

We are watching the second for the first time and is much more intense.

The paradox of Revelation

I read Graeme Goldsworthy's first chapter in The Gospel and Revelation. He explains the nature of Jewish apocalyptic literature. Common features include writing the secrets of a revelation (apocalpyse) from God onto a scroll which is sealed until the time for it to be revealed. He then points out how this plays out in Revelation 7 (see below): it is expected the mighty Lion of Judah will open the seal. But, instead the slain Lamb does! This illustrates the central paradox of the Gospel: the victory of God was not won by power but by the humiliation of his own Son.

²And I saw a strong angel proclaiming with a loud voice, "Who is worthy to open the scroll and break its seals?" ³And no one in heaven or on earth or under the earth was able to open the scroll or to look into it, ⁴and I began to weep loudly because no one was found worthy to open the scroll or to look into it. ⁵And one of the elders said to me, "Weep no more; behold, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has conquered, so that he can open the scroll and its seven seals."

⁶And between the throne and the four living creatures and among the elders I saw a Lamb standing, as though it had been slain, with seven horns and with seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God sent out into all the earth. ⁷And he went and took the scroll from the right hand of him who was seated on the throne. ⁸And when he had taken the scroll, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb, each holding a harp, and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints. ⁹And they sang a new song, saying,

"Worthy are you to take the scroll
and to open its seals,
for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation,

The painting is Saint John of Pathmos by the Limburg brothers.

Who will I vote for?

In less than two weeks Australia has a Federal Election. I have to confess that I usually decide who to vote for at the last minute. From a Christian point of view I always find something to strongly disagree with most parties and candidates. There has been some good discussion on Christian blogs about this election. This excellent post by Nathan Campbell links to relevant ones. [I particularly liked Simone Richardson's one about Christian values]. He also has a good post on why he is not voting for Family First, despite being a Christian.

To US readers this really highlights some significant cultural differences with Australia.

Reading Revelation II

I am back in Brisbane and at church we are working through the book of Revelation and so I am re-reading Graeme Goldsworthy's book The Gospel in Revelation: Gospel in Apocalypse. My previous post recommending this book generated some great discussion. Here I just list a few of the theses that Goldsworthy ends his chapters with:

The Lion-Lamb tension shows that the Gospel is the only key to the understanding of the book of Revelation.

The theme of the Lion and the Lamb points to the paradox of the normal suffering of Christians and the Victory of Christ

The doctrine of justification is basic to Revelation and woven throughout the book.

The Old Testament perspective of the day of the Lord, which is contained in God's apocalyptic visions, is modified by the Gospel. The linear succession of the ages becomes the overlap of the ages between the first and second comings of Christ.

I find the first two theses particularly helpful. The last one I am still to get my brain around.

The painting is Michelangelo's The Last Judgement in the Sistine Chapel.