An integrated perspective on life

Yesterday was a public holiday, known as Australia Day. January 26 marks the arrival of British settlers in 1788. It has been suggested that the day should be called Invasion Day. Since the British settlement, the indigenous people have suffered immensely from numerous atrocities. Unfortunately, much suffering continues today. With regard to health, poverty, education, substance abuse, incarceration, and discrimination, there are massive gaps between the indigenous and non-indigenous populations. For Christians, this suffering presents a significant challenge. We are to pursue reconciliation, justice, and mercy.

On the eve of January 26, my family attended an excellent (virtual) event, #ChangeTheHeart, organised by Common Grace. You can watch it here.

I want to note something that I found striking: the integrated perspective about life held by indigenous communities. My new awareness reflects (ashamedly) my ignorance. Different cultures have different values, traditions, and ways of thinking and doing. It is fascinating and helpful to have the privilege of having a window into other cultures. It can make us more self-aware of our own culture, including our own biases, prejudices, and assumptions. For those who follow Jesus, this is particularly important because the Kingdom of God transcends all cultures. Unfortunately, Christian institutions and individuals (including me) have a very checkered history of conflating their own culture with Christianity.

Over more than 65,000 years Aboriginal people developed a strong affinity for the land, sensitivity to the rhythms of nature, and a strong sense of history, extended family, community, and spirituality. In almost every sense these orientations go against the values of modern Western society which is oriented around capitalism, individualism, the future, rationalism, technology, and secularism.

Indigenous communities have an integrated view of life, that developed over hundreds of generations. They do not separate economics, politics, ethics, law, community, and the environment. This holistic perspective is something that the Western world is very slowly coming to awareness of. One concrete example is the push for ESG investing, where investments are not made solely on the basis of profit but bring Environmental, Social, and corporate Governance criteria into investment decisions. The covid-19 pandemic has accentuated a general awareness of the interconnectedness of things, such as public health, the economy, government, business, and education. Most essential workers are paid minimum wages! We are not completely isolated independent autonomous individuals who determine our own destiny. Our well being is very dependent on that of others.

I look forward to learning more and hope and pray that Australia will seek reconciliation with and justice for the original custodians of the land that we now call Australia.

The tragedy of family and economic failure

Why do some people end up poor and broken while others are prosperous and flourish? No doubt, family of origin and local economic circumstances each play a large role. The relative importance of these different factors is contentious and is often at the heart of (often divisive) political debates.

This debate was promoted in the USA by the book, Hillbilly Elegy, by J.D. Vance, published five years ago. Four years ago I blogged about the political issues raised by the book.

I recently watched the movie version of the book.

The main value of the movie is that it allows one to feel more directly the pain and tragedy of growing up in a family that is rife with violence, verbal abuse, conflict, poverty, substance abuse, hopelessness, and a deficit of accountability, affirmation, and opportunity. In spite of the dysfunction, there is still love and hope, particularly embodied in Vance's grandmother and the tenderness and mutual support in J.D.'s relationship with his sister.

It is probably unrealistic to hope that such a movie can capture some of the discussion of economic and political contexts and issues discussed in the book. Time magazine has a helpful article, putting the movie in context.

The offence and challenge to Christian's of a simple life-style.

 Last Christmas, I read a biography, Basic Christian: The Inside Story of John Stott, by Roger Steer. I found it helpful, encouraging and challenging. Stott was someone who loved Jesus, loved the Bible, was a humble leader of integrity, and had a particular concern for the Majority World.

One small piece that stood out is the paragraph below concerning the 1974 Lausanne Congress on World Evangelisation. The meeting issued a Covenant, which was largely written by John Stott. An excellent exposition of the Covenant is in a book by Stott, and subsequently updated by Chris Wright, Christian Mission in the Modern World.

The Covenant covers 15 topics with a paragraph on each. There is much that the 2,300 leaders from 150 countries could have disagreed about. However, the most contentious sentence was the following.

Those of us who live in affluent circumstances accept our duty to develop a simple life-style in order to contribute more generously to both relief and evangelism.

This led to a consultation in 1980 which produced a detailed paper, some of which is here.

How do we read these Old Testament stories?

 Lately, in my daily Bible reading, I have been using The Message, a translation of the Bible in contemporary language by Eugene Peterson. I like it because it sometimes expresses familiar passages in new ways that make me think.

One bonus in the "Readers Edition" that I have, kindly given to me by my wonderful wife, is that at the beginning of each Bible book there is a short introduction by Peterson. Here is some of his Introduction to 1 & 2 Samuel.

Four lives dominate the two-volume narrative ... Hannah, Samuel, Saul, and David. ... These four lives become seminal for us at the moment we realize that our ego-bound experience is too small a context in which to understand and experience what it means to believe in God and follow his ways. For these are large lives—large because they live in the largeness of God. Not one of them can be accounted for in terms of cultural conditions or psychological dynamics; God is the country in which they live. 

Most of us need to be reminded that these stories are not exemplary in the sense that we stand back and admire them, like statues in a gallery, knowing all the while that we will never be able to live either that gloriously or tragically ourselves. Rather they are immersions into the actual business of living itself: this is what it means to be human. Reading and praying our way through these pages, we get it; gradually but most emphatically we recognize that what it means to be a woman, a man, mostly has to do with God. These four stories do not show us how we should live but how in fact we do live, authenticating the reality of our daily experience as the stuff that God uses to work out his purposes of salvation in us and in the world. 

One of many welcome consequences in learning to “read” our lives in the lives of Hannah, Samuel, Saul, and David is a sense of affirmation and freedom: we don’t have to fit into prefabricated moral or mental or religious boxes before we are admitted into the company of God—we are taken seriously just as we are and given a place in his story, for it is, after all, his story; none of us is the leading character in the story of our life. 

 For the biblical way is not so much to present us with a moral code and tell us “Live up to this”; nor is it to set out a system of doctrine and say, “Think like this and you will live well.” The biblical way is to tell a story and invite us, “Live into this. This is what it looks like to be human; this is what is involved in entering and maturing as human beings.” We do violence to the biblical revelation when we “use” it for what we can get out of it or what we think will provide color and spice to our otherwise bland lives. That results in a kind of “boutique spirituality”—God as decoration, God as enhancement. The Samuel narrative will not allow that. In the reading, as we submit our lives to what we read, we find that we are not being led to see God in our stories but to see our stories in God’s. God is the larger context and plot in which our stories find themselves.

[The complete text of this introduction is here.]

Where to from here? How should the West respond to its Christian heritage?

 Dominion: The Making of the Western Mind by Tom Holland is an amazing read. In just over 500 (!) pages he presents a compelling story of the interplay of Christian theology, church history, and the intellectual and political history of the Western world. 

This month in the theology reading group, we are discussing the third and final section, Modernitas, which covers 1645 to the present. The scope is amazing. The cast of characters includes Oliver Cromwell, Baruch Spinoza, Benjamin Lay, Voltaire, Marquis de Sade, Charles Darwin, Thomas Huxley, Karl Marx, Andrew Carnegie, Friedrich Nietzsche, J.R.R. Tolkien, the Beatles, Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King Jr., ... The issues and topics discussed include the abolition of slavery, evolution, human rights, capitalism, communism, democracy, war, sexual morality, secularism, homosexuality, and the #MeToo movement.

A helpful summary of the main point of the book is at the end.

 If secular humanism derives not from reason or from science, but from the distinctive course of Christianity’s evolution – a course that, in the opinion of growing numbers in Europe and America, has left God dead—then how are its values anything more than the shadow of a corpse? What are the foundations of its morality, if not a myth? 

A myth, though, is not a lie. At its most profound—as Tolkien, that devout Catholic, always argued—a myth can be true. To be a Christian is to believe that God became man and suffered a death as terrible as any mortal has ever suffered. This is why the cross, that ancient implement of torture, remains what it has always been: the fitting symbol of the Christian revolution. It is the audacity of it – the audacity of finding in a twisted and defeated corpse the glory of the creator of the universe—that serves to explain, more surely than anything else, the sheer strangeness of Christianity, and of the civilisation to which it gave birth. 

Today, the power of this strangeness remains as alive as it has ever been. It is manifest in the great surge of conversions that has swept Africa and Asia over the past century; in the conviction of millions upon millions that the breath of the Spirit, like a living fire, still blows upon the world; and, in Europe and North America, in the assumptions of many more millions who would never think to describe themselves as Christian. All are heirs to the same revolution: a revolution that has, at its molten heart, the image of a god dead on a cross.

(p.524-5, Abacus 2020 paperback edition).

A specific example of the type of argument Holland makes (and his beautiful prose) is the following. Even Marxism is deeply indebted to Christian theology.

 Marx’s interpretation of the world appeared fuelled by certainties that had no obvious source in his model of economics. They rose instead from profounder depths. Again and again, the magma flow of his indignation would force itself through the crust of his scientific-sounding prose. For a self-professed materialist, he was oddly prone to seeing the world as the Church Fathers had once done: as a battleground between cosmic forces of good and evil. 

Communism was a ‘spectre’: a thing of awful and potent spirit. Just as demons had once haunted Origen, so the workings of capitalism haunted Marx. ‘Capital is dead labour which, vampire-like, lives only by sucking living labour, and lives the more, the more labour it sucks.’ This was hardly the language of a man emancipated from epiphenomena. The very words used by Marx to construct his model of class struggle—‘exploitation’, ‘enslavement’, ‘avarice’—owed to the chill formulations of economists than to something far older: the claims to divine inspiration of the biblical prophets. If, as he insisted, he offered his followers a liberation from Christianity, then it was one that seemed eerily like a recalibration of it. (pp. 441).

So what? What might be appropriate responses to this book? It is receiving considerable attention from those with a wide range of perspectives, both Christian and not. There seems little argument about whether the book is historically accurate. The debate is more about the implications for life today. Here is a caricature of two responses, briefly alluded to by Ross Douthat in a column in the New York Times a year ago.

An atheist who identifies with the secular political left may concede the Christian origins of many issues that are central to their vision for society: economic justice, human rights, equality,... However, they may say that we can take these good things and we can dispense with all the theology and Christian institutions. They are outdated, unscientific, superstitious, have served their usefulness, and on balance have been instruments of oppression.

A Christian who identifies with the political right will be proud of this heritage and argue that unless Western society returns to these origins, and institutionalises them in terms of law and education we are doomed to societal chaos.

I find both problematic and actually dangerous. Both seem to assume that all you need to do is legislate and institutionalise morality and values. Both may have a strain of self-righteousness. It is just different sins that they focus on.

As much as I love the book, Tom Holland presents a "secular" history of the human dimension to Christianity, which is almost one-dimensional. On one level this is fair enough as it is where his expertise lays and is the ground rules for public intellectual discourse.

There are some more fundamental questions that need to be addressed.

Holland highlights some aspects of the Western world that are distinctly "Christian" But, what about the many aspects that are not, such as individualism, consumerism, neoliberalism, ...?

Is there a role for the divine? Is there something amazing and powerful and transcendent also going on in all this history? Who was Jesus? Was he more than a profound teacher who died a brutal death? Did he actually rise from the dead? Jesus' death on the cross was certainly a powerful, counter-cultural, and inspiring symbol of suffering. But did it actually bring into being a new spiritual reality and achieve a real reconciliation with God (i.e. atonement)? Were Christians who changed their worlds able to do that just because they were inspired by radical ideas (power through weakness, the last will be first, the dignity of all humans, ...), or were they actually tapping into a powerful spiritual force that not just transformed them but also those they interacted with? Is the positive influence of Christian ideas and values on Western society an example of common grace?

In different words, what actually is authentic Christianity? Is it true? Is it real?

Has the modern church lost the radical and counter-cultural edge of the teachings of Jesus and Paul?

The book highlights the necessity of the western world to grapple with such questions in a humble, honest, and open manner. If Christianity shaped our past and present, how should it shape our future?

Emergence in science, theology, and mission

Emergence is one of the most important concepts in the sciences, both natural and social. I have also found it to be fruitful in engaging with questions relating to theology and mission. 

Tonight I am giving a talk on the subject for a session of the Write conference of The Simeon Network. It was canceled earlier this year and is now being held online. 

Here is the current version of the slides.

A gentle introduction is in a short article I wrote for Test of Faith.

A longer academic article is Emergence, reductionism and the stratification of reality in science and theology.

Last year I wrote a blog post about Emergence of Sin by Matthew Croasmun. A helpful review is at Marginalia: LA Review of Books.

Update. A complete video of the talk is below. The introduction is by Professor Peter Gill.

Christendom was not very Christian

Tom Holland presents a fascinating story of how in the past two thousand years Christianity shaped Western society in his recent book Dominion: The Making of the Western Mind. This month in the theology reading group, we are discussing the second section, Christendom, which covers 754 to 1420 AD.

The first section, Antiquity, traces how Christ's death on the cross, full of suffering and humiliation, shaped what Christians believed and how they lived. This was radical and counter-cultural, and paradoxically increased the power and influence of the church. 

However, reviewing the rise of Christendom there is no room for Christians to feel pride or triumphalism. Rather, we should feel shame and embarrassment at the failure of church leaders and members, particularly in relation to power, wealth, violence, division, pride, and self-righteousness. Church leaders were quick to align themselves with rich and powerful rulers and support violence, often from unruly mobs, as a means to expand their territorial influence and to deal with perceived heresy.

These areas are intertwined and represent clear violations of the teachings of Jesus and Paul. It is worth considering each of these in turn. I quote a few representative texts but claim that these are central themes of the whole New Testament.

Power 

In Matthew 20:25-28, Jesus warns the disciples.

Jesus called them together and said, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be your slave— just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

Henry Nouwen comments

One of the greatest ironies of the history of Christianity is that its leaders constantly gave in to the temptation of power—political power, military power, economic power, or moral and spiritual power—even though they continued to speak in the name of Jesus, who did not cling to his divine power but emptied himself and became as we are [Philippians 2:5-11]. 

Wealth 

You cannot serve God and money (Matthew 6:24). Caring for the poor and needy is the same as caring for Jesus (Matthew 25). Paul warns Timothy about false teachers (1 Timothy 6:3-10).

Those who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.

Violence

Genesis 6 describes how God was grieved that the earth was full of violence. In Matthew 6 Jesus says "turn the other cheek" and

“You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous."

Do not respond to evil with evil (Romans 12:17-21).

Division

Jesus' followers are to aim to live in peace with one another. Their unity is to be a sign that Jesus is from God.

Pride and self-righteousness

Followers of Jesus are not to be the "first to cast the stone" or to look at the speck of sawdust in their brother's eye when there is a plank in their own. Surely, this does not just relate to lifestyle but also to hairsplitting about doctrine.

On that note, it is easy to pass judgement on these past leaders and church members who joined violent mobs. Why didn't they read their Bibles? Well, it was not quite so simple. Many were illiterate. Even if they were there was no mass publication. There was no Bible in their own language. The church liturgy was in Latin.

An intriguing example of the moral complexities church leaders faced was the relationship between the priest Alcuin and Charlemagne, the King of the Franks who became the Roman emperor. The example of King David was used by Charlemagne when in 782 he ordered the beheading of 4500 prisoners in a single day. He became a sponsor, friend, and student of Alcuin, who was able to convince the warrior king to stop his practice of forcing pagans to convert at sword point. Alcuin pointed out "faith rises from the will not an act of compulsion.''.

This period of church history was not all bad. There were rays of hope. Alcuin laid foundations for literacy and education, that fully blossomed into the first universities, Bologna and Paris. The notion of equality of all humans before God led to that of human rights and equality before the law. There was also the seeds of modern science being sown in universities.

Although in the Western world today church leaders are rarely involved in physical violence, that does not mean that there is not verbal and relational violence, both at the individual and corporate level. Furthermore, the allure of power, money, pride, and self-righteousness seems rampant. May we repent and sit at Jesus' feet and be challenged to live as he wishes us to live.