Church Militant

For some reason, a church militant scares people. And so it should; the whole of human history is filled with the militancy of all kinds of human groups and cultures — any militant body is designed as an organisation that wins fights.

But why is a church militant different from a state militant, or a civis militant, or a polis militant? Could it be that people actually think that churches should be peaceful and non-militant? The way doves are supposedly emblems of peace? Even the Buddhists have a history of warfare.

The words of the Church's head are these:

Do not think that I came to bring peace on Earth; I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I came to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; and a man's enemies will be the members of his household

You can find these words in the tenth chapter of the Gospel of Matthew. In the equivalent readings in Luke's gospel, he says:

I have come to cast fire upon the Earth; and how I wish it were already kindled! But I have a baptism to undergo, and how distressed I am until it is accomplished! Do you suppose that I came to grant peace on earth? I tell you, no, but rather division...

And so endeth this part of an ancient lesson.

Separation

I keep reading silly comments from atheists about getting the Church out of schools. But the thing they can't get away from is that the Church (in one of its annoying, glorious, strange or otherwise entertaining manifestations) set up those schools in the first place. It is of course true that there are many schools set up by non-Church organisations or the state itself; so why can't the atheists just stop going to Oxbridge and mission schools and parochial schools and suchlike?

It irritates the heck out of me. No sense of history, no sense of gratitude at all.

And yes, those atheists who want to launch diatribes about the evils of historical religion may do so too. I'm not denying that even the Buddhists have fought vicious wars. But at least get it right; deny the WHOLE package and stick to your God-damned (at least that is one of the things some atheists stress) atheist principles by avoiding everything the Church (and her children) has ever done for humanity.

Come And See

For a faith that is assumed to deal mostly with intangibles, Christianity is unusually empiricist. I am struck by the frequency with which characters in the Bible are exhorted to "come and see" — that is, to make themselves physically present in order to observe a specific phenomenon.

More than that, the concept of controlled testing is not alien to the book either. In the first chapter of Daniel, the eponymous author proposes a clinical trial (well, not double-blind, but a simple one) in which he and his friends will eat a vegetarian diet for ten days and then be compared to the rest of the cohort in terms of fitness to serve in the king's court. Later, King Nebuchadnezzar very cleverly demands that his dream-interpreting sorcerers and diviners should tell him the contents of his dream first before they interpret it. Only Daniel passes this test.

It's interesting to see also Elijah's test on Mount Carmel, where he demands that his sacrifice be wet down with water three times, the water overflowing into a trench, before calling down fire from heaven. The precision of the resulting strike is now a matter of legend, and the consequences to his opponents proportionately dire.

One verse that is often quoted out of context is: "You shall not put the Lord your God to the test." That kind of testing is the test of provocation, not the test of hypothesis; it is the kind of testing we imply when we say, "Do not test my patience." The God of the Bible doesn't otherwise seem to mind having his power being tested for a specific reason.

Generally, the many tests of power in the Bible are rooted in results — a test is proposed with a result that allows falsification (i.e. proof that the assertion tested is false). It is thus no wonder that early scientists like Galileo and Newton were able to investigate the natural world without seeing conflict with their faith (although they might have cut it fine with their nominal co-religionists).

To this day, just as with science, two kinds of tests remain in everything Christian — the test of reason and the test of findings. If hermeneutic reasoning shows an assertion to be theologically unreasonable, or if the findings of an empirical test show an assertion to be false, the penalty used to be death by stoning or the sword. In this supposedly more enlightened age, we have a much, much more tolerant response to false prophets and other snake-oil salesmen of various persuasions.

Any Day Now

It could have been any day in the year, but today is the eve of Christmas, a day on which our thoughts turn towards gifts, peace, and the foreshadowing of great sacrifice. For it is a Christian thing that we have done, to take something pagan (like Saturnalia or Eostre or Samhain) and make it into a sacred day by some form of hallowing.

All days and any days can be treated such. So too can deities. The ancient gods of many lands became neutralised and nullified, their names bent to accommodate angels and saints. Even the Greek or Latin names of the faithful bear the echoes of their immediate past paganism — why name a child Sylvanus unless one remembers the spirits of the forest?

And so we have come to this, that we have made the dread of elves into the mockery of elfs, or the fear of Auld Nick into the jollity of Santa Claus. But not to pick at too fine a point, why should we not? As long as we remember that there is darkness out there, and that laughter and light will turn it back (if not fire and the sword), we have a worldview that is reasonably true.

It's always better to see the whole story though, and not just have a view of the stage from below. As Shakespeare wrote, "'Tis the eye of childhood that fears a painted devil." We take comfort from that. Yet, we note that it was Lady M who said it in Act One, and we remember what that led to before the final resolution of Act Five.

We need to be mature, to try to see the whole battlefield and not just respond to the flashes of light and smoke. Then we can learn to fix our eyes upon the Christ, not merely the Bethlehem star; to see the perfection and finishing of faith, not just the faintly commemorative shadow of its beginnings. Though we see as through a glass darkly, we will see clearly soon, as if face to face.

The Legacy of Simon Magus

I think Christian education, sadly, is becoming an oxymoron. To be Christian is more and more to deliberately embrace ignorance of the Word because 'knowledge puffs up'. But knowledge of the Word is specifically seen as one of the marks of a believer's maturity (even though it is not the only mark).

To be exact, the phrase quoted comes from I Corinthians 8, and it is part of a longer argument. What is argued is that some people are not as learned, and have simpler consciences, so what is acceptable practice to the learned may be injurious to the less learned. Therefore if you find that you can adopt a pagan practice and there is actually nothing in the scriptures against it (for example, smoking cannabis), you may be free to indulge, but this might cause those with a more sensitive or less educated conscience to sin in one of several ways. Paul says that he would even stop eating meat, if eating meat would make his brother stumble in the faith.

The problem of course lies in the context. If there is knowledge which the Scriptures confirm to be theologically true (for example, that Jesus is Saviour for all Christians), then it is not the kind of knowledge that puffs up, but the kind that must be used for teaching (i.e., doctrine), for correction, for reproof, and for training (i.e. instruction) in righteousness (see II Timothy 3:10-4:5).

This is where many who espouse some form of prosperity gospel are completely and sinfully wrong. The warnings against it are absolutely clear, whether in Greek or in English. Here is I Timothy 6:3-10, the words of the apostle Paul himself:

If anyone teaches otherwise and does not consent to wholesome words, even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to the doctrine which accords with godliness, he is proud, knowing nothing, but is obsessed with disputes and arguments over words, from which come envy, strife, reviling, evil suspicions, useless wranglings of men of corrupt minds and destitute of the truth, who suppose that godliness is a means of gain. From such withdraw yourself.

Now godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out. And having food and clothing, with these we shall be content. But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and harmful lusts which drown men in destruction and perdition. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, for which some have strayed from the faith in their greediness, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.

If the apostle argues 'we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out', what could he possibly be saying about the prosperity gospel? Do you think he is in favour of such a doctrine or not? And what 'all kinds of evil' is he talking about?

One particular word that modern Christians should retain in their (in recent years) emaciated lexicon is the word 'simony'. For some reason, it seems to have been forgotten; I suspect it is because this word seems rather unpleasant to the modern materialist ear. Simony is actually one of the great sins which the Lutheran reformation was opposed to. It comes from the attempt of Simon Magus to procure the gifts of the Spirit by purchasing them with money, as recorded in Acts 8:9-24.

I mention it here because it is very clear that the apostles were quite contemptuous of money and material wealth. In fact, they were pretty much proto-Communists in that they believed in redistribution of wealth from those who had excess to those who needed it (see Acts 2:44-45 and Acts 4:34-35).

In fact, there is no scriptural justification at all that wealth is the necessary consequence of God's favour, although wealth (like any other material thing) can be a blessing. It is easier to argue that martyrdom is a more common reward for using the gift of prophecy, for example, or that the gift of tongues is the least important of all gifts, used more for a sign to the unbelieving than for the edification (i.e. 'building up') of the faithful.

Sound Bites

I remember that when I was very young, my father taught me some mnemonics which seared their tattoos into my brain. One interesting mnemonic involved Jesus' debate opponents, the Pharisees and the Sadducees.

My father said that the Pharisees were Fair-I-See — in Matthew 23:27, the Bible records that Jesus said, "Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men's bones, and of all uncleanness." They appeared fair on the outside, defenders of the law, very meticulous about practices and customs, but not at all like that on the inside.

He said that the Sadducees were Sad-U-See — in all three of the synoptic gospels, they are described as people who deny the concept of resurrection, and hence believed that in death, all go down to Sheol forever. In fact, they were complete materialists; the book of Acts tells us that they did not believe in supernatural agents or agencies.

For Christians, these two errors are pretty serious. The first is to adhere to the form, but not the substance; the second is to deny that there is a spiritual destiny at all. I've succumbed to both at various times in my life, and I suspect that there might yet be times of drought.

Punishment for Sin

It's always interesting to discuss Christianity with Christians. The main reason for this is that most Christians, being human, are pagans at heart. Their instincts are contra-biblical, so to speak, and never more so than when they talk about the just punishment (in this world) for misdeeds.

Normally, their main line of argument, whenever something bad happens, is to blame it on collective sin, ancestral sin, or personal sin. A recent example of this was blaming the Haiti earthquake disaster on alleged national Satanism. I've even heard that the reason one man had to have a heart bypass was because of the wrongs he had done to others. All this is plainly inconsistent with Christian scriptures.

To all Christians who pursue this unhealthily pagan obsession with finger-pointing, I simply suggest a thorough re-reading of the Bible in general. Sometimes, I point to the books of Job (where five different explanations for such phenomena all meet the disapproval of God), Ecclesiastes ("...time and chance happen to them all..." and other paradoxes of why good people get bad things happening to them while evil people don't), Romans ("...all have sinned..." and hence everyone should be visited by random disasters, I suppose) and the Gospels. Sometimes, I get tired of pointing to all the many cases where the Bible tells its readers that being born blind, or being shipwrecked, or being in a tower that collapses, has nothing to do with being in a state of sin.

The one comeback that I've found most common is a quotation from Exodus, often taken out of context, in which God says that he visits the sins of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation. To such people, I point out that the entire Mosaic code is a legal contract. Essentially, if your forefathers did something bad, somebody normally had to pay the price. This is especially clear when people read the Ten Commandments and stop at Exodus 20.

For example, there's an injunction (Exodus 20:12) that goes, "Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee." It is also known as the Fifth Commandment, the only one with a promise attached. But it is also a logical threat, if you read the elaboration of Exodus 20 that continues into Exodus 21 and beyond. If you read Exodus 21:15,17, these verses say, "And he that smiteth his father, or his mother, shall be surely put to death... And he that curseth his father, or his mother, shall surely be put to death." Well, that explains why dishonouring your parents will make your days short, doesn't it?

The Ten Commandments are of course the most frequently taken-out-of-context statements of the Bible, although they aren't the only ones. People get embroiled with varying interpretations of 'Thou shalt not kill' (the Sixth Commandment) even though subsequent passages and books clearly differentiate between a) manslaughter, b) accidental killing, c) 'lying in wait', d) military operations sanctioned by higher authority, and so on.

The problem really is selective retention of a collective whole. The Bible's legal code is as consistent as anything else can be said to be consistent, and is remarkably liberal for its time once you read it as the contract it is meant to be part of. It is this burden of massive legal contract which prompted St Peter to say in Acts 15, "Now therefore why tempt ye God, to put a yoke upon the neck of the disciples, which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear?" as the answer to whether Gentile converts should obey the Mosaic law.

The first key point of Christianity, with respect to sin and punishment, really is that if everyone is a sinner, then retribution should fall on everyone. It is like failing a pass/fail test; you can fail by 1 mark, 10 marks, or get a big fat zero — but a fail is a fail and you will suffer the penalties.

The second key point of Christianity, is that an unbelievable and unjust and undeserved general amnesty has been declared. No matter how much you failed by, you get a pass. Maybe not a distinction, but a pass. This of course will irritate people who have passed by working hard, but since the Examiner has decided to do it, you can't complain (see the parable of the workers in the vineyard, Matthew 20).

A Christian is technically one who claims that amnesty. It can be claimed by just walking up to the Examiner and saying two things: 1) I admit I have failed (hence, I qualify for the amnesty), 2) I believe you have the administrative right to grant that amnesty and I want it from you. Most people don't believe it is so easy.

But this is exactly what should happen if you follow the basic premise of why the amnesty is given. According to the Christian Bible, God wants everyone to pass. If you cannot pass on your own merit, you have to ask for the amnesty. The catch is twofold and completely based on faith. Firstly, there is no direct evidence of what your score really is — you are only told that everyone fails. Secondly, there is no direct evidence that you need the amnesty (or even, that the amnesty exists or works as advertised).

To me, what's really interesting is the different ways humans interpret this situation. Sometimes, I think to myself, "That's a great deal, why don't more people take it up?" This is often answered by, "What deal?" or "I'm sure to pass!" or "There's no test, there's only a great deal of schooling for no final reason."

Perhaps this is why so many people insist on one of two main ideas: for every human sin, there must be some sort of retribution; and, there's no such thing as retribution—all disasters are just the logical effects of people being in the wrong place at the wrong time. The idea of undeserved benefit is an alien one, even though it crops up often enough in human society.

Christian Monolithism

Sometimes, but not frequently, I walk around the religious sections of bookstores. While there, I am reminded of why atheists target Christianity preferentially when ranting against religion in general. The fact is that Christianity is the biggest target. Fully represented on every continent and with its religious book the world's best-selling volume in history and every year since inception, Christianity is a big business.

In a sense, Christianity as a monolithic institution, a kind of religious abstraction, has nothing to fear from atheism. The percentage of atheists might grow, but in absolute terms the Christians willing to buy Christian books will always outnumber the atheists willing to buy atheist books.

Atheism is too weak a faith, too contrary a belief unto itself. The point is that it is an anti-faith faith. It relies on the idea that a specific paradigm is more useful to humans because of greater reliability, validity and utility — which are themselves the underpinnings of that paradigm. It is the ultimate (and pretty convincing) demonstration of circular reasoning, much as mathematical axioms, unquestioned and ineffable, will always lead to 'right' answers.

But back to Christianity...

In these bookstores, I find literally hundreds of titles purporting to be 'A Christian Perspective on [some current topic]', 'The Christian (and) [whatever]', 'Christianity and [some other thing]' and so on. Each of them assumes a monolithic perspective, totally disregarding in most cases the fact that Christianity is certainly the most diverse of all the major religions except for Hinduism, in matters of creed and practice.

St Paul was the ultimate exponent of that diversity. In his first epistle to the believers at Corinth, he hammered home the point that while there was one faith, yet each person was to build their own work on the foundation of Christ. Subsequently, "Therefore judge nothing before the time, until the Lord come, who both will bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and will make manifest the counsels of the hearts: and then shall every man have praise of God."

The credo of the early church was minimal in its conformity; in Paul's letter to the Ephesians, he writes, "I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you that ye walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called, with all lowliness and meekness, with longsuffering, forbearing one another in love; endeavouring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body, and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling; one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all. But unto every one of us is given grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ."

In letter after letter, line after line, the apostles preached organisational unity, but diversity in practice and interpretation. They had frequent disagreements, made compromises, and agreed a very little list of key beliefs— although that 'very little' was the central essence of the faith. Much of the rest — for example, observances of feast days, ideas about eating, proper ethical conduct, the importance of gifts — was treated with apostolic disdain. In fact, it's amazing how much Paul said was NOT important.

The point is that EVERY Christian is entitled to have her or his own personal opinion on global warming, dancing, smoking pot, listening to loud and discordant music (especially in 'charismatic' churches, I suppose) and many other issues. Some of these opinions may be right and some may be wrong; but Christians are told that there is freedom until the final judgement. That means that they should be careful with their freedom and they ought to try and get things right, but that's what we tell our children anyway, and there's nothing exceptional there.

There are immutables and firm guidelines, but not as many as the prescriptions in the bookstores seem to imply. For Christianity is no monolith; rather it stresses diversity of perspectives and gifts revolving around a single source of illumination. In that sense, it is more like Stonehenge than Babel, and the world ought to be the richer for that.

A Civil Society Forever!

Over the last few days, the idea of civil society and civil institutions has taken a hammering, or at least been struck like a gong. The reverberations still continue, but I think it is a kind of healthy clangour.

Let me describe the situation. A local women's-rights organisation was taken over at its AGM by a group of women who turned out to have a general commonality: a bunch of them were from the same Christian church from down the road. As the details emerged through the cloud of fine spittle that tends to develop around the hissing of the faucets, it turned out that a number of emails had been exchanged among some members of this latter group describing the original institution as... well, perverse in terms of sexual mores, I suppose.

This was deemed reason enough for a takeover. Many days and mutual recriminations (some probably slanderous) later, an EOGM was held and vociferously attended. The newly elected executive committee was roundly defeated in a vote of no-confidence and the old organisation, newly overturned, was back to its old self again.

The vote of no-confidence succeeded by the large margin it did simply because it had a huge and even newer coalition supporting it. Apparently, the threat of a church-based takeover of a secular organisation had stirred the pot so much that secular forces had decided to get their own back. And so they did.

Personally, what I found alarming was the fact that persons X, Y, Z and so on could just blithely take over an established institution and decide to destroy its culture because they thought it was a good idea. It happens a lot, but never with such naked and unrepentant zealotry.

So, who was right and who was wrong? Or, who was right and who was left? It is tempting to cast everything in some sort of Foucaultian power/society/sexuality/institutionality sort of model. But I think that quite simply, it is generally a good sign for those who are hoping that Atlantean society develops balls the capacity for a healthy degree of internal disagreement, debate and discussion.

What I don't agree with is that churches should be tainting themselves by taking over secular organisations. There is no Biblical precedent for it; rather, Christians are exhorted to be in the world but not of it, and to free themselves from conformity to the world and its institutions. In this, I use the word 'taint' in the sense of 'tint, colour or dye', a perfectly legitimate usage from the 16th century. Christians aren't supposed to be part of secular sides, but separate from all to the same degree.

Actually, proto-Christians were also supposed to be proto-Marxists, if you read this passage (and this one) clearly. I've always thought that Marx had cribbed his famous 1875 slogan off somebody. Naughty man.

But I don't think I saw any of the church people rushing to sell their stuff for redistribution. The American religious right tends to talk about Godless communism. I wonder if they've ever considered Godly communism before. What a powerful social framework it would be! Heh.

Belief (in) Systems (Part II)

This is a sort of thematic sequel to a previous post, in which I wrote about some fundamental underpinnings of worldviews. In that post, it turned out that the punishment-reward or scoring sub-system tended to trump the altruism sub-system in human individuals. Some people think that is natural (it's like the concept of 'original sin') and some people think it is unfortunate (it's like evolutionary biology going up a dead end).

The world today is messy, but the thing about history is that we could have seen it coming a long time ago. Right now, there are five key belief systems out of the thousands of belief systems there are. These five key belief systems may not be important to everyone, but their sheer size (in terms of numbers of adherents), ubiquity (in terms of geographic spread) and significance (in terms of people and policies affected by adherents) make them worth looking at.

The five belief systems I am referring to are (in alphabetical order): Capitalism, Christianity, Globalism, Racism and Secular Humanism. It is quite possible for a person to believe in more than one of these, but it is unlikely that any given person will believe in all five, especially since some of them don't 'play nice' with the others.

Why are these five systems so important?

Capitalism, to begin with, is the child of that long and painful era known as the industrial revolution. Descended from the merchant cartels of the 16th century, it eventually became the guiding economic philosophy of empire-building. Its assertions that people should strive to control the means of production individually, in an environment of free choice (the 'market') and thus create prosperity for all, have been tested and sometimes found wanting. Nevertheless, it has been the dominant economic belief system of the 20th and 21st centuries so far.

Christianity, an eastern religion which sprouted from Palestine about 2000 years ago, is now the world's most widespread and influential religion. Monotheistic and proselytizing, it has butted heads with almost every other belief system on the planet. Although Jesus and his followers seemed somewhat socialist (if not communist) in ideology, for some reason American Republicans seem to conflate extreme capitalism with empire-building AND fundamentalist Protestant (there's an oxymoron for you) Christianity. It blows the mind.

Globalism seems like a modern trend. But it is a venerable belief system espoused by most ancient civilisations; it believes in things like the unity of the world under a single integrated programme (philosophy, creed, religion, whatever) in which individual cultures and ideas can flourish. The Pax Romana and Pax Britannica were pretty supportive of this ideal; the Pax Americana not so much. The United Nations and other international umbrella organisations are all children of this belief system.

Racism, unfortunately, is the extreme and somewhat common response to the Other. In racism, a group of humans believes that by virtue of their narrowly-defined genetic pool, they are superior to all others. This genetic virtue, already a somewhat dubious construct, is supposed to provide intellectual, moral, and even aesthetic superiority. It often co-opts other belief systems to establish itself, and has been shown to have a neurobiological origin in terms of the way humans differentiate between like and not-like.

Secular Humanism (as opposed to other kinds of humanism) is a creed which believes that a rational human, free of all supernatural influences and ideas, is a happy human. Although there are many flavours of secular humanism, the core ideals are a) secular—i.e. without religions or non-rational constructs, and b) humanist—putting human life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness first. It is an ancient creed, often veiled by the fact that earlier societies tended to pay at least lip-service to the idea of the divine, and to frown on those who didn't.

All five of these will crop up as the shadowy or not-so-shadowy influences behind almost every piece of news you encounter, in every medium of communication. I think it is not possible to find any news source which isn't influenced by at least one of these forces. This means that an educated human must at least be able to state and understand the basics of these belief systems, whether he or she (or zie) believes in them or not.

Reducing Complexity

Those of you who watched the Obama inauguration might have been listening to the elegant classical piece (Simple Gifts, by John Williams) played by that very talented quartet of Perlman, Ma, Montero and McGill. What struck me, besides the cinematic orchestration that is Williams's trademark, was the 19th-century 'Simple Gifts' theme, first used by the Quakers and popularised by Copland in his Appalachian Spring.

What's important about that piece is the beginning: the lyrics to that tune begin with, "'Tis a gift to be simple, 'tis a gift to be free..."

The Quakers, unlike the usual stereotype of a stiff and humourless people, were a reactionary and revolutionary Christian sect who believed that a lot of Christians could do with a lot less 'stuff and baggage'. They had a lively sense of humour and a solid sense of being; this combination led them to the key philosophy (as opposed to doctrine) of simplicity. Simply put, they believed that life could be reduced to simple elements and everybody would be happier for it.

In a world that seems to be spiralling out of control in terms of its complexity and diversity, perhaps the antidote is to take a couple of steps back and realise that there are indeed certain fundamental truths, and a position taken based on fundamentals — consistency, decency, thrift, industry, the right to life and the maintenance of life — is very hard to diminish or destroy.

Bookie

I've noticed an interesting trend in my personal life of late, as I sit here pondering the outcome of the English Premier League's latest round of farcical and amazing results.

That trend has nothing to do with the EPL, but a lot more to do with what I do when not thinking too hard about it.

I tend to give books away as birthday presents; in the past, I used to read them first and then give them away. I'm one of those who treats books well – most people say my old books look brand-new. But of late, I've realised that I'm giving away books I haven't read, some nicely sealed in plastic, some being unread copies of books I have already read.

I suspect that somewhere along the line, personal affluence made me slowly slip into this new mode. In the past, I used to budget $10 or so for gifts. I'm not rich, and I come from a line of thrifty merchants. Now, I tend to aim at £20 as a limit for casual gifts, and for those who mean more to me, it goes as high as £200. Madness.

I don't think it's purely the affluence. I think it's also relative affluence and an awareness of what that means. Most people I know are in the top 5% of the world's population in terms of earnings. That might sound outrageous, but the average person in my city is in the top 5%. Think about the billions of poor agricultural workers in the third world nations, and you will see why this is true.

What does it all mean? I guess when the Bible repeatedly tells us not to be consumed by love of money, that the love of money is the root of all evil, that rich men find it hard to squeak through into heaven, and that we are to be good stewards who give everything back to our master... it's good to just spend money on other people.

We who are people of the Book ought to pay up out of our own wealth for people who need it. I have been perturbed in the past to watch Christian institutions raise millions of dollars in funds just to build nice buildings. It's all very un-Christian. Just take a look at this passage, if you need to know why I say this.

The prosperity gospel is a sham. Whether you end up with wealth or not, understand this: wealth is a burden, to be given away wisely and easily. When you cannot shed wealth easily, then it is as good as a shackle of rusty iron.

Can Holistic Education Exist? (Part 3)

In my last disquisition on this topic, my conclusion was that perhaps, if you were running a Christian mission school, you would have to look at the Christian doctrine regarding the chief end of man; i.e. what kind of holism man was supposedly created for.

This is probably a rather contentious situation when it comes to the details. I am pretty certain that while Judaeo-Christian institutions have many points of agreement, the points of difference exercise them more. And so, I'm just going to float an hypothetical Christian school's educational credo (yeah, the usual philosophy, vision, mission sequence) and see what people say (if anything).

Please note that what follows is a kind of description of the ethical underpinnings of such an hypothetical community. At some point I suppose I will address the UN Declaration of Human Rights, but not here. And this is certainly not a strategic plan or a detailed workplan. It is only a preamble, if you like, for such things.

Here goes. And I do sincerely hope that readers will comment on how this can be improved, given the premises on which it has been constructed.

=====

We believe in one God, eternal and almighty, Maker of Heaven and Earth. We believe that He created the world and its people and cares for them. We believe that the best foundation for a fruitful and satisfying life in human society is having a right relationship with Him. This relationship is exemplified and justified by the life, atoning death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. It demands a lifestyle and a value system which is consonant with that demonstrated and elucidated by the Word of God.

In line with our beliefs and values, we see our students as young people who can be developed by inculcating a desire to seek out what is true, right and beautiful, primarily in a Christian sense; and by providing them with an education aimed at this, so that they may serve society well in the latter part of their lives. Our vision therefore is that every one of them will come to show excellence in learning, in leading, and in living.

This vision is empowered by a school philosophy which maintains that it is desirable and possible to develop and implement a programme of education which will meet the needs and interests of every student. Every one of these young people has a God-given potential which can be fulfilled — and everyone who enters the school can manifest success and high achievement in different areas through hard work and a positive attitude.

Our mission must therefore be to...

1. create conditions where all students can exercise their initiative and responsibility to attain excellence;
2. establish an environment where students can hope to develop their potential into concrete achievements, irrespective of their backgrounds and abilities;
3. foster a safe, caring and orderly community for spiritual, intellectual, social, emotional and physical growth;
4. prepare young people to meet the challenge of rapid change in society, in a way that is pleasing to God.

24

Hermeneutics is the discipline of interpreting a text. Specifically, it is most often used to mean the discipline of interpreting the Bible. The general principles make a lot of sense though for many texts, and I reproduce them below.

Here are 24 hermeneutic rules for interpreting the Bible, taken from A Layman’s Guide to Interpreting the Bible (pp17-91), by Walter Henrichsen. This is an orthodox Christian view, and from other perspectives may seem a bit self-serving – but this is a list of rules for Christians to interpret Christian scriptures. It doesn't work in its raw form for other texts or creeds.

General

1. Work from the assumption that the Bible is authoritative.
2. The Bible best interprets itself; Scripture best explains Scripture.
3. Saving faith and the Holy Spirit are necessary for us to understand and properly interpret the Scriptures.
4. Interpret personal experience in the light of Scripture and not Scripture in the light of personal experience.
5. Biblical examples are authoritative only when supported by a command.
6. The primary purpose of the Bible is to change our lives, not increase our knowledge.
7. Each Christian has the right and responsibility to investigate and interpret the Word of God for himself.
8. Church history is important but not decisive in the interpretation of Scripture.
9. The promises of God throughout the Bible are available to the Holy Spirit for the believers of every generaation.

Grammatical

10. Scripture has only one meaning and should be taken literally (but see below).
11. Interpret words in harmony with their meaning in the times of the author.
12. Interpret a word in relation to its sentence and context.
13. Interpret a passage in harmony with its context.
14. When an inanimate object is used to describe a living being, the statement may be considered figurative.
15. When an expression is out of character with the thing described, the statement may be considered figurative.
16. The principal parts and figures of a parable represent certain realities. Consider only these principal parts and figures when drawing conclusions.
17. Interpret the words of the prophets in their usual, literal and historical sense, unless the context in which they are fulfilled clearly indicates they have a symbolic meaning. Their fulfilment may be in installments, each fulfilment being a pledge of that which is to follow.

Historical

18. Since Scripture originated in an historical context, it can be understood only in the light of Biblical history.
19. Though God’s revelation in the Scriptures is progressive, both Old and New Testaments are essential parts of this revelation and form a unit.
20. Historical facts or events become symbols of spiritual truth only if the Scriptures so designate them.

Theological

21. You must understand the Bible grammatically before you understand it theologically.
22. A doctrine cannot be considered Biblical unless it sums up and includes all that the Scriptures say about it.
23. When two doctrines taught in the Bible appear to be contradictory, accept both as Scriptural in the confident belief that they resolve themselves into a higher unity.
24. A teaching merely implied in the Scriptures may be considered Biblical when a comparison of related passages supports it.

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There are few things more distressing than to see people quote Scripture out of context. Take for example the commonplace use of Jeremiah 29:11 at Christian weddings. That verse says, "For I know the plans I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future." Yes, it sounds good, especially with its context removed. Reading verse 10 before it should be sufficient warning: This is what the LORD says: "When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will come to you and fulfill my gracious promise to bring you back to this place." In other words, it's all about captivity and exile for 70 years before the good part begins. Hardly what you really want in a marriage...

Not My Will

When Christians pray, they pray that God's will be done. It is difficult to understand how this can be so, or not so.

Think about it: If He is God, then by definition, how can His will not be done? It is only if we assume that the Christian God is somehow able to keep His will in abeyance for certain things that a prayer can contain 'Thy will be done' as a meaningful statement, one would think. And yet, it is possible that the phrase has some other intent: perhaps Christians should think of it as a deliberate surrender of their own wills - "Thy will be done," rather than, "Me, me, me!"

It is also possible that it is a statement of fact - which is fine, except when this might be fatalism, the view that God's will is inevitable and all we can do is bow. But fatalism, in its own way, is a form of arrogance; it is the stance before God that since He is all-powerful, we have no choice but to accept what happens. It is equivalent to saying, "Yeah, you have out-bullied me, I have not enough power to resist you, so I am surrendering."

And so Christians pray for this and that and the other, for triumph in sports, for more money, for great things and small. And sometimes they forget that the leader of the pack, the Teacher himself said, "Nevertheless, not my will, but Thine be done." And other Christians pray to be belittled and humbled and to be aware of how small and tiny and weak they are. They forget that their Creator made all things well, and that the lesser things of the world are sometimes made in victorious opposition to the greater things. To be humble is to be aware that the will that sustains the universe is inviolable, yet merciful; it is infinite, and yet personal; it is all things it wants to be, and chooses not to be other things; and it is beyond the mind of man.

Like children, we often ask for small things - a million dollars, a cure for cancer. It is nothing to the Will of the Highest to give a billion dollars, or a billion stars. The critic says then, "Why doesn't He?" The answer is beyond us. Perhaps it is because the essence of humanity is corrupted at some threshold of power and wealth, perhaps not. Perhaps when all of us 'have stars at elbow and foot', stars become worthless; when all have a billion dollars, inflation is intolerable. And perhaps we shall never ever understand in its entirety while we remain as we are, for to understand at that level might not be one of our functions in this life.

In the end, what is worth anything is that we have tried our best to learn the infinite rulebook; that we have played the game as best as we have worked to (and are allowed to) understand it; and that we have acknowledged the primacy of the Arbiter in all things. To be content - perhaps, that is everything.