Elizaphanian

Dreams from my father (Barack Obama)

Elizaphanian@gmail.com (Sam Norton) — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 09:39:00 +0000

Nice guy; not quite up to the job. The book is an interesting read but I think he might have missed his calling.

A joke

Elizaphanian@gmail.com (Sam Norton) — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 08:45:00 +0000

What's the difference between an economist and an astrologer?
Astrologers get some predictions right.

(I just made that up)

TBTM20091109

Elizaphanian@gmail.com (Sam Norton) — Mon, 09 Nov 2009 08:22:00 +0000

Some things I've found interesting on the web in the last 24 hours:
An interview with Michael Ruppert
Lessons from the Edge (which I identify with)
On priesthood in the NT
The case for deflation (with some stunning graphs)
That U2 concert (h/t DMK)
The exorcist, secularisation and folk piety

Red Kite

Elizaphanian@gmail.com (Sam Norton) — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 12:37:00 +0000

One of the wonderful things about where we go to in Wales is the large number of Red Kites based on the farm. Magnificent creatures.

Up

Elizaphanian@gmail.com (Sam Norton) — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 12:08:00 +0000

What Phil said. 5/5

5 Deeply de-Christian doctrines

Elizaphanian@gmail.com (Sam Norton) — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 11:21:00 +0000

Joe tagged me with this (and the people I would tag have already been tagged, so I won't bother). Basically, anything good which gets raised too high becomes de-Christian; anything which is less than God which starts taking on divine attributes (especially perfection) becomes idolatrous and oppressive, and thereby de-Christian. So with that said...

1. Sola Scriptura: not just meaningless but, in so far as it eclipses the truth that a human being was the incarnate Word of God, anti-Christian.
2. Papal Infallibility: ultimately it is the consensus fidelium which is infallible, but even there, there are some things which we cannot stand just yet.
3. Private Judgement: source of the ten thousand things and all manner of distress. Has a role as part of an iterative process, it cannot be a final locus of authority on its own.
4. Penal Substitution: if suggested as one possible metaphor for understanding atonement, I can just about bear it; when imposed as the only possible understanding then it is the ultimate "doctrine of man" and graceless.
5. "Family Values": source of much of our present distress, and not something that Jesus was particularly supportive of. There is the individual in their relationship with God, and then there is the church family. Biological links come some way behind that, at least as Jesus taught.

Dunroamin

Elizaphanian@gmail.com (Sam Norton) — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 11:14:00 +0000

Back from a two week holiday in Wales.
Normal service will resume shortly.

Delightful video on leadership

Elizaphanian@gmail.com (Sam Norton) — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 08:38:00 +0000

(h/t Rob Hopkins)

Some links

Elizaphanian@gmail.com (Sam Norton) — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 16:04:00 +0000

Whilst my brain barely nudges out of neutral at the moment (although I have a double book review to do for the Church Times by Friday), I'm still reading a fair bit. Some interesting links:

One of the reasons why I think it's wrong to be a partisan re Israel/Palestine:

The Dreyfus model of skills acquisition. There aren't many things I'd claim to be proficient in using this model.

The end of contrarianism. Interesting, as I'm somewhat that way inclined :)

And on that subject... and also this and this and this.

Interesting long article about James Cameron.

Re: the Holy Father's attempt to recruit some elements of Anglo-Catholicism, I thought this was funny and this was to the point.

MadPriest on the BNP.

Reasons for liking Tolkien.

Bad options on Iran.

And finally, something I'm looking forward to purchasing one day.

The Concrete Blonde/ The Last Coyote (Michael Connelly)

Elizaphanian@gmail.com (Sam Norton) — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 15:18:00 +0000

Slowly working my way through these and it becomes clear how far Connelly is developing in the mastery of his storytelling art, each one more satisfying than the last.

Ghost Town

Elizaphanian@gmail.com (Sam Norton) — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 14:45:00 +0000

Quite diverting. 3/5

The Invention of Lying

Elizaphanian@gmail.com (Sam Norton) — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 14:41:00 +0000

Religious satire from a humourless atheist. 3/5

More on Rowan: that time has come and gone my friend

Elizaphanian@gmail.com (Sam Norton) — Fri, 16 Oct 2009 08:57:00 +0000

First off, if it wasn't clear from my preceding post, I do agree a very great deal with what Rowan said, and if I had been there I'm sure I'd have found it exciting and inspiring to hear him speak in these terms. My difference with him is subtle, but, IMHO, significant nonetheless.

At one point, Rowan says this: "Hulme is right surely that the scale and complexity of the challenge we face mean that no one solution will suffice. We need to keep up pressure on national governments; there are questions only they can answer about the investment of national resources, the policy priorities underlying trade, transport and industry and the legal framework for controlling dangerous and destructive practices."

From my perspective, political activism at this point is somewhat nugatory. When the discussion about the Limits to Growth first came to public prominence nearly forty years ago I think that there was a tremendous opportunity for political engagement to make a difference. I believe that if the message of LTG had been heeded at that point in time then the possiblity of maintaining 'the world as we know it' was strong.

We are not at that point. Despite a very great deal of environmental activism through the ensuing decades, the trajectory of our civilisation has not been changed and I believe that a more-or-less 'hard' crash is inevitable. Actually, 'inevitable' is still the wrong word - I believe that the hard crash has begun, and that we are going to spend the next fifteen to twenty years living through what could be called 'world-historical-events' - at least the equivalent of World War II, although I retain a selfish hope that England might be spared the trauma that it experienced at that time.

I feel that political engagement (on the large scale) is rather like wrestling for control of the steering wheel _after_ the car has gone over the edge of the cliff. It is a pointless exercise. In other words, don't try and grab control of the wheel, try to ensure that the seatbelts are secure and the crash bags are functioning properly. Or, as my favourite line from 'The Day After Tomorrow' has it, "that time has come and gone my friend... save as many as you can."

Part of my perspective here is that the larger situation is chaotic and unknowable. Much is written from the climate change perspective about the chaotic side of things, but that argument so often proceeds from a narrow and 'unaware-of-LTG' perspective that it undercuts itself. The best example of this, for me, is the way in which the IPCC doesn't take the peaking of resources into account. The interactions between the various different aspects of the crisis will sometimes exacerbate and sometimes mitigate each other, and this is one reason why I think climate change (on its own) is overblown as an issue. (Let me make clear, when I express scepticism about climate change, it is a little like someone saying of a crashed and written-off car - hey, at least the left wing panel is undented.)

In addition to this, one aspect that I am pondering is what the hospice movement has to teach us at this present moment. I accept John Michael Greer's distinction between 'problem' and 'predicament' and what is at stake is how we are going to respond to the predicament, not how we are going to solve the problem. (Rowan was sharp on this point: "Mike Hulme's book is helpful as a warning against too readily buying in to extravagant language about 'solving' the problem of climate change as if it were a case of bringing an uncontrolled situation back under rational management, which is a pretty worrying model that leaves us stuck in the worst kind of fantasy about humanity's relation to the rest of the world.")

So, gathering these threads together, I believe that what we are called to do - as Christians - is not to focus upon what will 'solve' or 'fix' or even 'address' any of the manifold aspects of the crisis. I believe that God is in the crisis, still working to reconcile the world to himself, and that it is way beyond any individual or group of individual to pretend to "solve" all the aspects of our situation. To put this in another way, I do not believe that we are "responsible" for the world, or to keep the world in good order. When Rowan talks about "a rediscovery of our responsibility for" the material world then I start to feel uncomfortable.

Part of the problem - what has led to our predicament - is a sense of humanity being mightier than it is. As Byron put it "God may and does call us to a role of responsibility for one another and his good world. But to believe that we bear the full burden of the future of life is another form of human hubris, and like all hubris, it will eventually crush us."

You could say - to change my metaphor somewhat - that we have been swept by a current into a tunnel and we don't know how or if we are going to come out. What we are called to do in this situation is exercise a very great deal of faith in God's purposes for us, and cleave to his intentions for our small scale patterns of life. As Rowan himself says, "we ought to beware of expecting government to succeed in controlling a naturally unpredictable set of variables in the environment or to produce by regulation a new set of human habits. We need equally, perhaps even more, to keep up pressure on ourselves and to learn how to work better as civic agents."

In other words, what is not pointless - and what I firmly believe is a Christian duty at this point - is to be "politically" engaged at the local level, principally through the Transition Town process, and to actually change our patterns of life - in the sorts of ways that Rowan hinted at (eg gardening). Martin Luther's teaching - if the world were to end tomorrow I would still plant a tree today. Our relationship with God, and our relationships with our neighbours, are not abstract and can be directly meaningful in a way that striving for a particular global outcome simply isn't.

This is why Jeremiah is our guide. He was chastised by God for trying to intercede on behalf of the Jewish people, to try and prevent the immense suffering that they were about to experience. It was too late for that. Jeremiah was called to be a witness, to be a sign that God had not abandoned the people and that there was still room for hope (I particularly resonate with the way in which he purchased land as a pledge of what is to come - very timely for us I believe). That is what I think we need to do - change the world from the inside out, start to live differently in the here and now, not be distracted by fantastic tales about what may or may not happen (including mine), and trust that if we are right with God then he will be right with us - that his grace is not exhausted or his mercy spent, and that, perhaps, enough righteous men will be found in Sodom to stay his hand.

Archbishop Rowan calls us to be human

Elizaphanian@gmail.com (Sam Norton) — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 08:02:00 +0000

In a way rather similar to what I've been banging on about for the last few years.

Rowan says "We do justice to what we are as human beings when we seek to do justice to the diversity of life around us; we become what we are supposed to be when we assume our responsibility for life continuing on earth" and later "this surely is the main contribution to the environmental debate that religious commitment can make... it is to hold up a vision of human life lived constructively, peacefully, joyfully, in optimal relation with creation and creator, so as to point up the tragedy of the shrunken and harried humanity we have shaped for ourselves by our obsession with growth and consumption", and later "What we face today is nothing less than a choice about how genuinely human we want to be".

In other words, 'Let us be Human'.

I do have differences with his perspective though, and whilst they will take a much longer post (even a book [grin]) to flesh out, I'd summarise it like this:

Rowan is still looking outwards - seeing the ecological crisis and saying we will not be fully human until we act in a way that safeguards creation. So safeguarding creation is the end purpose in mind. In this way, Rowan is channelling the Green perspective - giving a Christian spin to an agenda that is already in place.

What I want to do is look inwards. I want to give a fully Christian account of the ecological crisis. (See this and this.)

I see the ecological crisis as a symptom of two deeper crises, which are inter-related but still separable. The most important crisis is a spiritual one; we have forgotten God, we have succumbed to idolatry, and therefore wrath is descending upon us. The second is like it, namely this: we have abandoned any sense of social justice and our lack of concern for our neighbour is one of the prime drivers behind environmental catastrophe.

In other words, if we get our spirituality in order, if we worship God correctly, and if we safeguard the poorest amongst us, then the ecological crisis will be solved as a consequence of that.

If we carry on trying to fix the ecological crisis as an end separate to those two prime commands, then we will never be fully human. In particular, if we succumb to fear in our plans (which seems to be such a large part of climate change activism) then we will never get the spirituality right - and it is the spirituality that is more important.

I wish I could get a publisher... DLT? Continuum?

Some links

Elizaphanian@gmail.com (Sam Norton) — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 16:07:00 +0000

John Hobbins starting to look at human sexuality and the image of God, which is relevant to the marriage question (I'll be returning to that soon).
Bishop Alan on the media; loved this "one message to angry vicars who feel misrepresented becomes “Forget Fleet Street. It simply doesn’t matter any more." The Trafigura fuss brings home part of that point.
Joe the Evangelist on Mission and Worship (I disagree with Joe, but I'll write separately about that).
Dave Keen links to this interesting polemic against celebrity culture. I think the rant is against a symptom rather than the cause though (the cause being, IMHO, the collapse of virtue diagnosed by MacIntyre).
BNP supporters are planning a bombing campaign, allegedly (h/t Chelmsford Anglican Mainstream).
Some gorgeous Rachmaninoff (I recommend checking that site regularly to get a fix of the heavenly).
Bishop Peter Selby on the Anglican shenanigans: "Protestations of our opposition to homophobia will count for little in an environment where our representative actions speak far louder than our words." (h/t Wounded Bird)
Finally, for Al: one sense in which I am most certainly a liberal - and I should add, if home-ed becomes illegal, it's one of the few things that would persuade dearly beloved to emigrate to the States (something I ponder regularly).

The elevation of conscience....

Elizaphanian@gmail.com (Sam Norton) — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 10:34:00 +0000

"the elevation of conscience over a catholic understanding of orders..."
One of many useful insights in Judith Maltby's paper (re: the Act of Synod allowing women to be ordained).

Eagle Eye

Elizaphanian@gmail.com (Sam Norton) — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 21:53:00 +0000

So-so plot, but some very impressive action sequences. 3.5/5

Blindness

Elizaphanian@gmail.com (Sam Norton) — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 21:49:00 +0000

A wonderfully powerful parable for our time. 4.5/5

TBTE20091012

Elizaphanian@gmail.com (Sam Norton) — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 17:38:00 +0000

Bad options on Iran.

A brief question about marriage

Elizaphanian@gmail.com (Sam Norton) — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 15:45:00 +0000

Just thinking out loud here: is Christianity tied to any particular view of marriage? That is, if the social patterns of marriage changed drastically from what is conventionally acceptable today, and the Church blessed the process, would anything essential to Christianity be lost?

A handful of points:
- Jesus tells us that marriage is an earthly arrangement, not a heavenly one;
- Scripture witnesses to a variety of marriage styles, especially polygamy;
- on the other hand, Scripture also often portrays the heterosexual bond as normative (eg Mt 19.4-6);
- it's probably the particular virtues involved (fidelity, honesty etc) that are crucial for Christian life;
- in Christian history there have been times (eg medieval era) when marriage was restricted to those who were comparatively wealthy, eg with property, so marriage as such is not a universal;
- more recently, polygamy still seems to be tacitly accepted in some Christian areas, the argument being that monogamy owes more to Roman culture than to Scripture (although there are good scientific arguments for monogamy too).

With this I'm just trying to get clear about what is at stake in the discussion about the blessing of civil unions, and what it would mean if they were called 'marriage', and, more broadly, what would happen if a wider culture embraced or accepted a wide variety of "alternative" lifestyles.

My suspicion is that the answers to my opening questions are both 'No' and that Christianity can function, flourish and 'be itself' in all sorts of diverse contexts.

This made me laugh

Elizaphanian@gmail.com (Sam Norton) — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 10:12:00 +0000

TBTM20091011

Elizaphanian@gmail.com (Sam Norton) — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 09:49:00 +0000

The Good Enough Revolution: When Cheap and Simple Is Just Fine

Kicking women bishops into the long grass

Elizaphanian@gmail.com (Sam Norton) — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 08:33:00 +0000

Although it is not quite as baffling as the decision to award Obama the Nobel Peace Prize, the continual backtracking, equivocation and compromise-at-all-costs we can see going on with respect to consecrating women bishops is very nearly as daft. A decision has been made by Synod; now the gnomes are working out how to thwart it. Unity can also become an idol; surely a walking separately is an honourable outcome (and likely to lead to better relations in the long term)? Just how long does this process have to go on for? I fear that ABC is once again so concerned to include the extremes that the mainstream majority is prevented from pursuing its own vocation. Yet another thing that makes me suspect that most of the CofE will be aligned with TEC before too long.

Maggi has an interesting suggestion.

On that peace prize thing...

Elizaphanian@gmail.com (Sam Norton) — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 07:13:00 +0000

Sam to dearly beloved: did you hear that Obama has won the Nobel Peace Prize?
Dearly beloved: For...?
Sam: well that's the question, isn't it?!

Strange that something so honourable can end up demeaning both parties. If Obama was Roman Catholic then beatitude might be possible, but as he isn't, is there anywhere else left to go? I fear that after this, everything will be downhill and anti-climax. Is Nemesis ever merciful?

(Sorry if this comes across as excessively cynical and snarky. I'm genuinely baffled.)

Some thoughts on Worship (vi): Postscript - the fruits of right worship

Elizaphanian@gmail.com (Sam Norton) — Sat, 10 Oct 2009 06:52:00 +0000

Some friends are kindly discussing this series, see here, here and here. I'm prompted to write this postscript to head off a potential misunderstanding.

Worship has fruits. These are not the uses of worship - if we aim for the fruits then we are no longer worshipping rightly - but if we get the worship right then we can reasonably expect the God of all grace to equip us for ministry.

In heaven - or after the resurrection - then all that we do will be worship, for God will be with us eternally. In the meantime, worship allows us to touch heaven and enables us to carry out the work of the kingdom.

It is a little bit like a musician taking time to tune their instrument in order to then play sweet music; worship tunes us in to the correct pitch. Of course, that analogy breaks down a little - pursuing it would mean that all that happens in heaven is the tuning of instruments, a little like the cacophony that precedes the symphony.

Yet whilst we are here in this sinful world, right worship, which relates us to God and sets us right with God, is the spiritual medicine which heals us and enables us to share that healing with the wider world.

So right worship is the prerequisite for right mission, for right proclamation, for right witness. Where the worship is confused and confusing all these other elements of Christian life are diminished and inhibited.

This is why the stewardship of worship is an essentially pastoral task - it undergirds all other pastoral work - and why it is properly the prime concern of the priest. If we get the worship wrong then everything else we do is diminished; if we get the worship right then everything else we do is enhanced.

So yes: let us be concerned with all the other things that Christians are called to do - with mission, with evangelism, with political engagement and care for the poor, with provocative lives that challenge the powers and call people to repentance. But if we are going to do that in accordance with God's will and not with our own... let us take our worship with ultimate seriousness, and love God with ALL our hearts, minds, souls and strength. God must come first, and if we seek His kingdom then all these other things will be given us as well.