Moral Monster

God is a "moral monster" according to Dawkins (the chap who I mentioned a couple of days ago). I've just finished reading a book that defends God against that claim. The problem is that in the Old Testament, God is a bit mean. In an occasionally genocidal kind of way. Or at least that's the charge. So how can we worship a God like that? In fact isn't it a bit big-headed to want to be worshipped anyway? Well, secondly, worship is for our benefit too, and God correctly knows himself to be worthy of worship - it's not arrogant to say we're the best if in fact we are the best.
Firstly, the more difficult questions of OT. Author Paul Copan puts the OT in Ancient Near-Eastern context to begin with, which is a good start.

I reckon, as an example, when we wonder if it was a good thing to test if Abraham would kill his son, we have to remember that child sacrifice was practised by many ANE societies. So in context, God is saying that he demands the same commitment as other gods, but that child sacrifice is not required. So far from being an example of God being unpleasant, this is an example of how God is different, morally superior to what people at that time expected.
This is indeed how Copan deals with much problematic scripture. We have to see it in the context of the other civilisations of the time and their pervading moralities - which were generally much worse places to live. We have examples of other law codes from the time, which compare very unfavourably with the law of Moses. Tom Wright is quoted as saying that Mosaic Law is only temporary anyway - meant for a band of travellers in the wilderness. (sounds like the church).
Copan says we shouldn't necessarily judge ANE societies by our own moral standards. Maybe our morality is deficient in some way. (highly likely)
A corollary of this is that we are making moral Progress (or at least some of us are). Postmillennialism makes more and more sense. Almost as much as amillennialism. But that doesn't make either of them right.

Disappointingly, Copan doesn't ultimately have a good answer for why God seems to command massacres of Canaanites etc. He says that the Canaanites deserved it, God gave them plenty of time to repent, they actually weren't all wiped out anyway, God judged Israel even more harshly, etc.

If your ok with God commanding massacres under certain circumstances, that's fine, and there is other useful material in the book. I'm not, but I've got my wooly liberal cardigan on tonight and wonder about some of those texts.
Oh dear, run out of spac...

If you've read this, please leave a comment Saying "Rubbish" is more encouraging than not leaving one.


Isaiah 19:23-25 New King James Version (NKJV)
23 In that day there will be a highway from Egypt to Assyria, and the Assyrian will come into Egypt and the Egyptian into Assyria, and the Egyptians will serve with the Assyrians.
24 In that day Israel will be one of three with Egypt and Assyria—a blessing in the midst of the land, 25 whom the LORD of hosts shall bless, saying, “Blessed is Egypt My people, and Assyria the work of My hands, and Israel My inheritance.”

Location:Shed

Evolving

Just finished recapitulating all the study material from topping up theology in Nottingham. Most of the reading was to do with religion, science, and the existence of God.

Perhaps one change in theology since I left college has been the popularisation of atheism through books like "The God Delusion". I wouldn't recommend that particular book to anyone - not just because I disagree with it but because it doesn't even argue a case for atheism particularly well. The author doesn't bother to read any theology, since he thinks it's a non-subject. So he writes out of profound ignorance, and it shows.
The author, Richard Dawkins, is an Oxford academic. Or at least he is in the fields of zoology and genetics. Anywhere else he's out of his depth. He's written extensively on Darwinian natural selection, in popular science books like "The Selfish Gene". He's very good at that kind of thing, and states his case very well. I was certainly persuaded that evolutionary theory is generally correct, even if it still has several gaping holes. (No scientific theory can claim to be complete - it's always just a useful work-in-progress).

Especially in America, there is an idea that religion and science are in conflict. People like Dawkins in this country perpetuate this ancient myth. There are 'Creationists' and 'Evolutionists', who waste time arguing over bad science instead of turning to the bigger questions.
That's why I don't talk about it much. Anything that causes conflict among Christians, and isn't all that important anyway, is best avoided.
God created us. It doesn't really matter how.
I believe that science points us to a Creator, if we let it run it's course. It can do no other.

The official line of the Pope, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and other major church leaders and churches is that God created the world through a process, over billions of years. This is what several branches of science tell us. I don't see why there's anything wrong with that view. But of course there are many Christians who object to this idea. It says in Genesis that God created everything in 6 days. I've always thought a 'day' was just a way of saying 'a period of time', like we would say "in this day and age" without meaning a particular date. St Peter says as much (2Peter 3:8 - "...There is no difference in the Lord's sight between one day and a thousand years; to him the two are the same.") He's probably got Psalm 90 in mind ( a favourite of mine since I did this video version some years ago. ) This psalm puts things into God's perspective.



Psalm 90
1 O Lord, you have always been our home. 2 Before you created the hills or brought the world into being, you were eternally God, and will be God forever. 3 You tell man to return to what he was; you change him back to dust. 4 A thousand years to you are like one day; they are like yesterday, already gone, like a short hour in the night. 5 You carry us away like a flood; we last no longer than a dream. We are like weeds that sprout in the morning, 6 that grow and burst into bloom, then dry up and die in the evening. 7 We are destroyed by your anger; we are terrified by your fury. 8 You place our sins before you, our secret sins where you can see them. 9 Our life is cut short by your anger; it fades away like a whisper. 10 Seventy years is all we have--eighty years, if we are strong; yet all they bring us is trouble and sorrow; life is soon over, and we are gone. 11 Who has felt the full power of your anger? Who knows what fear your fury can bring? 12 Teach us how short our life is, so that we may become wise. 13 How much longer will your anger last? Have pity, O LORD, on your servants! 14 Fill us each morning with your constant love, so that we may sing and be glad all our life. 15 Give us now as much happiness as the sadness you gave us during all our years of misery. 16 Let us, your servants, see your mighty deeds; let our descendants see your glorious might. 17 LORD our God, may your blessings be with us. Give us success in all we do!

Location:Shed

Fundamental

Not been in the mood for blogging recently - perhaps been distracted by recent events.
I never intended to blog about what's in the news, but I will make an exception. Like everyone else, I was troubled by what happened on Friday, in Norway. I've never been there, but always thought it would be a nice place to visit given the few Norwegians I have known. So bombings and shootings seemed even more out of place there than in some places where we get a kind of terrorism-fatigue.
The shocking loss of life there was one thing. But there was another layer to what happened that troubled me too.

The BBC News channel reported that the attacker was a "Christian Fundamentalist". I wondered what they meant by that. To me, a Christian Fundamentalist Is someone who has slightly eccentric beliefs - e.g. That the world was created in 6 literal days. - but whom I would agree with on more important points of Christian doctrine. Despite what the BBC were implying, there is no pathway between being a bit dissatisfied with Darwin, and deciding to kill people who disagree with you.
Unfortunately the BBC picked up on one Norwegian policeman who put together the words "Christian" and "fundamentalist", at a time when most people, if we're honest, were thinking "Islamic" and "Terrorism". And so we had a link made that should not be made. As usual, TV seems more influenced by The God Delusion than by God.
It seems that the policeman had been looking for a motive, and was just repeating something that was known from a Facebook page. For the uninitiated, Facebook profiles have a box for "religion" - in which Anders Behring Breivik had put "Christian". Not altogether surprising for someone living in a Christian country who had a deep hatred of Islam.

According to this blog, his religious views were that the Protestant church had failed (to keep out Islam?) and should get back to Rome. Breivik was also a freemason, which Christian fundamentalists are not, on principle. His link with Christianity is tenuous at best - despite conspiracy theories, the Knights Templar and the crusades are not currently supported by any Christians I know, or any church I've ever heard of.

It's worrying that for people outside religion, Christian fundamentalism and Islamic fundamentalism seem to be seen as the same thing - just with different religions.
Christian fundamentalism came from a desire to go back to the fundamentals of the faith. None of which involve violence.


Matthew 5:44
“Love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you.”

Matthew 5:9
“Blessed are the peacemakers”

Location:Shed

Politics

There are some topics of conversation that are best avoided. Or so the saying goes. One is generally thought to be religion. (Which of course makes proselytising difficult.) Another is politrics.

I don't understand politics. Gradually I have come to a vague idea of what Left and Right mean. I have an idea where the political parties in the UK are on the Left-Right continuum, and how it's possible to win elections by covering more of the spectrum than your opponents.

I've heard it said that the Houses of the Church of England tend to vote as follows:
Laity: Conservative
Clergy: Labour
Bishops: Lib-Dem
So there is no straightforward mapping between faith and politics.

Perhaps I'm politically moderate because one of my grandfathers was a labour councillor, whilst the other was chairman of the local conservative club.
To be honest, I often don't bother to vote - yes i know of the sacrifice of previous generations so I could, so not voting is a bad thing. But I never know exactly what I'm voting for in a general election: is it a particular local MP, the makeup of a town council, or the national government? How can it be all of them?
And why do I have to walk round to the second-closest primary school to scribble on a bit of paper? And why are there no proper checks on who I say I am when I vote?
I might consider voting next time - if they tell me where the website is. It's completely absurd that we can't vote online when half a dozen companies are trusted with things like my credit card details. no wonder the turnout is so low.

There was something about American politics on the radio when I woke up. As I understand it, the choice there is limited to the Right-wing Democrats, or the extreme Right-wing Republicans. I thought it most odd to discover that there was a strong connection between the Christian vote and the Republicans. I would never have expected that, as a UK Christian. I think that historically it's something to do with polarisation on the Abortion issue.

My idea of American Christians probably owes much to Billy Graham. I have a great deal of respect for him. So I was surprised to find a few emails going around recently claiming to be an American prayer of confession he'd written or spoken. It included lines like, "We have rewarded laziness and called it welfare". The US doesn't have the same welfare system as the UK, and it's been disturbing to see the reaction to Obama's healthcare legislation, which seems to be coming from the "Christian" right.
I thank God for the NHS.

(It turns out of course that the prayer was nothing to do with Billy at all - see the full story here).

Not all American Christians are Right-wing of course. I met Jim Wallis at a conference a couple of years ago. He runs an organisation called Sojourners that challenges their government to work by biblical principles, often disagreeing with other Christian voices from the Right.

This country owes much to Christian principles, such as we find in Jesus' teaching - which can be seen as some way to the Left on our political spectrum. And Jesus' comments on wealth in general seem to me to be more about giving and sharing than anything else.


Matthew 6 (NIV)
2 “So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. 3 But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, 4 so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.

Location:Shed

Coventry cathedral

Stopped off at Coventry on our journey home.

Across the way from the cathedral is the Herbert arts centre and museum. I saw a doorway marked "Discovering God..." and of course dived in. Was slightly surprised to find a big picture of an apparently naked woman on a horse. Coventry's most famous citizen is remembered for taking all her clothes off and riding a horse through the streets, in some kind of tax-avoidance ruse. There's something about folk heroes of the midlands and paying their dues - Robin Hood and Lady Godiva have that in common.

More seriously, Coventry is well known because the cathedral was mostly destroyed by bombing in WW2. There is a very moving exhibit at the Herbert which has the speech made by the Provost of the Cathedral a few weeks after the cathedral's devastation. He talks about the need to not think about revenge, but instead, after the war, to work with their ex-enemies “to build a kinder, more Christ-like kind of world”. Probably didn't go down too well at the time, but very brave nevertheless. The exhibit had a computer which asked the question, was the Provost right to talk about forgiveness at that time? It logged everyone's answer. I'm glad to say 60% of visitors said the Provost was right; but I wonder how that figure has changed over the years.

And the cathedral itself. I have to say, after a week of cathedrals, Coventry is in my opinion the most colourful, and most beautiful. Surprisingly, also the most peaceful and spiritual. Both Lynn and I felt the presence of God there more so than any of the other ancient buildings we visited. Despite the hundreds of years of prayers in other cathedrals, Coventry is special. Lynn sat in the Lady chapel while I rushed around in gleeful amazement at the towers of coloured glass that dominate the interior. Salisbury, Winchester and the rest are proper grown-up cathedrals, but I'm like a child in wonderland in a place like Coventry.
Coventry cathedral compared with the others we saw is like the Metropolitan cathedral in Liverpool, compared with the Anglican.

The only thing that was disappointing, similar to yesterday, was to see the crowds outside in the ruins of the old Cathedral who didn't seem to make the way in to the new one.


After an interesting week-long cathedral-crawl, it's back to the shed for me now, with plenty to blog about. I expect I'll be back to my old ways by tomorrow, wandering down the canal and making the odd trip to Liverpool. One cathedral I haven't visited for a while is the Met - must put that right next week.

Now for some Bible. The inscription on the foundation stone at Coventry says this:

To the glory of GOD
this Foundation Stone was laid by
Queen Elizabeth the Second
on the 23rd day of March 1956

Other foundation can no man lay
than that which is laid
which is JESUS CHRIST +



Psalm 127 and 2Corinthians 5:
1 Unless the Lord builds a house,
the work of the builders is wasted.
Unless the Lord protects a city,
guarding it with sentries will do no good.

1 For we know that if our earthly house, this tent, is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.

Location:Coventry

Salisbury and Stonehenge

First things last; we almost went to Stonehenge today. There were hundreds of people there. Queuing up to walk around the stones. We gave up trying to get on the car park - it was full of coaches - and decided to give it a miss. You can see the stones from the road anyway.

Salisbury cathedral was quite busy, but not as busy as Stonehenge. It seems a few roughly hewn blocks of stone sticking out of the ground are more popular than a gothic cathedral built out of thousands of exquisitely crafted blocks of stone.

Some kind of metaphor then for primitive religion/ fuzzy spirituality vs. the highly developed particularities of Christianity. Everyone likes a bit of spirituality, but not that "organised religion". This, I seem to remember, came as a surprise to the abbot on The Big Silence last year, when "ordinary people" tried out being quiet and meeting God in a monastery. And BBC 2. People had unexpected, profound, spiritual experiences. But didn't relate them to the Christian religion which provided their environment.

I've recently been listening to a few atheists complaining about how Christians jump about between the rather vague Creator God implied by the fine tuning of the universe, and the personal God as revealed in Jesus. There is some substance in the complaint insofar as debates go, but of course to a Christian those two Gods are one and the same. Or more accurately, the concept of a Creator God is a subset of the concept of the Christian God. God as revealed in Jesus has personality and character, and purpose - one of which is expressed in creation.

Pretty much everyone would like to believe in God - even the most deluded atheist isn't really that keen on oblivion - as their belief logically entails. Maybe Stonehenge appeals to that sense that there has to be something more, even if we don't know what it is. Christianity fleshes out that yearning, in the idea that the something wants us to know us so much that it became a particular human being, at a particular time and place. The specificity of that belief puts off many people, as do the moral responsibilities that follow from that belief. It's not easy but it is worth it. Whether or not you accept it is up to you. It takes a step of faith, but not necessarily a leap.

Colossians 1 (NIV)
15 Christ is the visible image of the invisible God.
He existed before anything was created and is supreme over all creation,
16 for through him God created everything
in the heavenly realms and on earth.
He made the things we can see
and the things we can’t see—
such as thrones, kingdoms, rulers, and authorities in the unseen world.
Everything was created through him and for him.
17 He existed before anything else,
and he holds all creation together.
18 Christ is also the head of the church,
which is his body.
He is the beginning,
supreme over all who rise from the dead.
So he is first in everything.
19 For God in all his fullness
was pleased to live in Christ,
20 and through him God reconciled
everything to himself.
He made peace with everything in heaven and on earth
by means of Christ’s blood on the cross.
21 This includes you who were once far away from God. You were his enemies, separated from him by your evil thoughts and actions. 22 Yet now he has reconciled you to himself through the death of Christ in his physical body. As a result, he has brought you into his own presence, and you are holy and blameless as you stand before him without a single fault.

Location:Salisbury

Winchester Cathedral

Back to a proper cathedral today: Winchester. Of course it's fabulous and ancient and historic and uplifting. But I think I'm beginning to suffer from cathedral fatigue. There's only so much cathedral you can take in in a week. And there are two more to go yet.

There was Anthony Gormley's installation in the crypt. There was a lunchtime concert in the north transept. And the Winchester Bible upstairs, next to the bishop Morley's library. I didn't quite get thrown out of there despite taking a photograph, which are disallowed for "security reasons". I.e. people nick the books. The guide lady told me that, and also that the books were science and astronomy and other things as well as theology, which had been bequeathed to "the clergy" because the bishop thought they should be as well educated as possible. I agreed. There are also a couple of very large globes. Which are visually much smaller than the one I've just seen on TV, although the BBC one for explaining the earth is only a virtual one.

In the cathedral bookshop I found something I really liked. It's s cross and a fish at the same time. Depending on what angle you see it from. A dimensional combination of the two great Christian symbols. I think it's called "Dimensions of Christ". I'll try to put a picture here, though it has to be seen in 3D to be fully appreciated.




I was reminded of my favourite Rob Bell video, Everything is Spiritual. There's a bit later on (after he's mixed up his fundamental particles - come on, Rob - quarks not leptons!) when he explains something with a pen. I think it's just after the excellent Flatland bit. He says a whiteboard pen looks like a circle from one angle, or a rectangle from another. His metaphor is that we sometimes disagree about things - some see a circle, others see a rectangle. God sees both. So sometimes when we want to know is it A or B, God says, "Yep!".

I think Rob may do this, but in case he doesn't, one example is the age of the earth. How long did God take to make it? 6 days or 14 billion years? Yep.

2 Peter 3:8 (TEV)
8 But do not forget one thing, my dear friends! There is no difference in the Lord's sight between one day and a thousand years; to him the two are the same.

Location:Winchester

Eden Project

A cathedral of a different kind today. We visited the Eden Project just a few days after it opened, and went back today to see what had changed. It's greener than it was. Which is the point of the Eden Project. I mused that the only thing at all religious or spiritual about the place was the name. But it does take an interest in God's creation in a unique and inspiring way. And so a pit in Cornwall now sports a vast green cathedral: a complex of futuristic "biomes", containing climates and plants from tropical and mediterranean zones.

As the website says,
"The Eden Project is an unique organisation - a tourist attraction, educational charity and social enterprise."

The Eden Project is a world-class attraction, with over a million visitors a year. And that's really a bit of a problem for a supposedly Eco-friendly attraction. They'd like it to be otherwise, but almost everyone arrives by car, (with a few coach trips too.) It's not exactly easy access down there on the Cornwall peninsula.

I finished reading iCar magazine tonight. That's the one about "efficient, intelligent, fun" motoring (Launch Issue). It went into impressive levels of detail with plenty of infographics on exactly how much CO2 is produced by manufacturing the plastics for a hybrid car, or precisely how bad the CFCs in an air-conditioning unit are.
The conclusions are that there isn't really much to choose between a fuel-efficient diesel, a fully electric car, and a hybrid (petrol/diesel engine plus batteries). A hybrid just about comes out eco-best. But you need to keep it at least 5 years. According to their expert, batteries don't have the energy density for long distances. So unless you just drive a few miles around a city, an all-electric vehicle won't do. (I like the concept of energy density. It also explains why we eat too much fried food.) Anyway, if you have enough money, get a plug-in hybrid. The new Ampera looks great. If only it didn't cost twice as much as our Honda.


Now today's verse. Resisting the temptation to misquote "Moses came down the mountain in his Triumph", or "they all were in Accord", I'll go for the bit of Genesis where no-one thinks a day is a day:

Genesis 2:15-17
15 Then the LORD God placed the man in the Garden of Eden to cultivate it and guard it. 16 He told him, "You may eat the fruit of any tree in the garden, 17 except the tree that gives knowledge of what is good and what is bad. You must not eat the fruit of that tree; if you do, you will die the same day."

Location:Cornwall

Colyton

Went to church this morning with our friends in Colyton. Was pleasantly surprised to find that there was a projector and screen set up. The Reader launched into a PowerPoint about pirates when we got to the talk (It was part of a seafarers' service). Apparently, that's the first time they've ever had a screen in there, and it just coincided with my visit! Can't remember the message, but there was a picture of Jonny Depp, of which Lynn approved.

Lynn got a Tom Wright book called "A moment of celebration" from the cathedral bookshop yesterday. It's a bit different from his usual stuff. In fact its really just one sentence per page. I've reproduced a few below. It was a bargain for £1.50!

Godson Thomas was quiet at church this morning. Mostly because he was eating and drinking. He's not yet learned to walk or talk, but is known as "lungs" there because of his vocal contributions.

And so to the wisdom of a slightly older Thomas:

"We celebrate the Eucharist because you learn to eat and drink before you walk and talk."

"Eucharist is where we can celebrate without being silly and grieve without being depressed."

"Eucharist is where we can ask unanswerable questions without getting frustrated and express our love without being sentimental."

"Worship is sensing the love of God and opening up to it like a flower in the sunshine."


I have to admit I'm not a big fan of the Eucharist. Or at least the way most churches celebrate it. I'll blog why that is next time I have a day where I don't leave the shed!

Here's why we do it:

Luke 22 (NLT)

17 Then he took a cup of wine and gave thanks to God for it. Then he said, “Take this and share it among yourselves. 18 For I will not drink wine again until the Kingdom of God has come.”

19 He took some bread and gave thanks to God for it. Then he broke it in pieces and gave it to the disciples, saying, “This is my body, which is given for you. Do this to remember me.”

Location:Colyton

Exeter cathedral

Came close to being thrown out of another cathedral today. This time because someone had inconveniently decided to get married there.

Thankfully we'd had a good look round by then, and so went off for a gingerbread latte with Lorrie and Thomas (who preferred eating his socks.)

There was some interesting artwork around, and even a video installation on domestic abuse, in a side chapel. Nearby were some things that looked like mushrooms from a distance. In fact they represented people's heads, covered in veils. The message was about how we try to hide ourselves from each other, and from God.





At the East end was a textile work, a pentatych I think, depicting the stages of life (and beyond). Each panel had an appropriate Scripture verse; interestingly, the one for teenage years was this:

Isaiah 49
15 “Can a mother forget the baby at her breast
and have no compassion on the child she has borne?
Though she may forget,
I will not forget you!

Location:Exeter

Gloucester Cathedral

Spent several hours today at Gloucester cathedral. There was a flower festival on, which meant it was considerably busier than normal. But we made the most of it and followed the crowds around the displays. Various historical events linked with the cathedral were interpreted in flowers. These were very beautiful, especially the purple ones. The were also several stalls in the cloisters where people were selling their wares - jewellery, pottery, glassware: some very nicer stuff. Lynn talked to a lady about bees for a long time.

I almost got kept out by a steward who wouldn't let me back in from the cafe. Apparently, saying you needed to get some water so your wife can take her medicine is "really trying it on". If you've ever wondered what happened to the Pharisees, I'm pretty sure they're now employed as cathedral stewards ( and possibly traffic wardens. )

My annoyance disappeared a few minutes later. There was a time of prayer announced, loud enough so everyone could hear. We decided to stop for a moment, as suggested. To my surprise, everyone else stopped too. And after a short reflection and some intercessions, we said the Lord's Prayer together. Then everyone went about their business. I found this incredibly moving.

Off to Exeter cathedral tomorrow morning (and seeing godson Thomas there - so really looking forward to it. )


Matthew 6 KJV

9After this manner therefore pray ye: Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy name.

10Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven.

11Give us this day our daily bread.

12And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.

13And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil: For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, for ever. Amen.

Location:Gloucester Cathedral

Gloucester

Had a walk toward Gloucester this morning down a track kind of thing that seems have been made specially for cyclists and pedestrians. Nice.

I stopped at a bridge over a little stream. I watched a beer can making it's way downstream. This was quite surprising because there didn't seem to be enough water to keep it afloat in most places. But somehow it kept moving, darting left and right and spinning round unexpectedly as little currents of water, too small to see, directed its progress.

This made me think of God's direction in our lives. Sometimes we seem to be going on a detour and wonder what's going on. But that's because God knows the map and we don't. Ultimately we will reach the destination that God has planned. But we have to trust that God knows the route better than we do.

There's a famous verse from the psalms that reminds us of this. I like to picture those solar lanterns that you cans stick in your garden - you can see them, but you can't see by them.


Psalm 119
105 Your word is a lamp for my feet,
a light on my path.

Location:Gloucester

Writing

A couple of articles on the BBC news this morning about onrushing technology. One about the demise of being able to write cheques; the other about the demise of being able to write at all.

Schools in Indiana (somewhere in the colonies, I believe) are to stop teaching cursive handwriting (story here). Pupils are expected to complete a basic typing exam, though. Teachers are saying that they don't have time to teach both handwriting and typing. And typing is increasingly being seen as more important. BBC TV had some vox pops and a large amount of messages from viewers (I wonder how many of them were handwritten?). People made various specious arguments about how writing helps children learn to sound words - as though there is some kind of connection between phonetics and the glyphs of our alphabet. Which of course there isn't. A letter "a" doesn't sound like anything until you're taught to associate that particular squiggle with a particular sound. It was all a bit sad - people clutching at straws to justify why children need to learn to do "proper" writing, when all they could really say was they felt it would be good and they had to do it when they were at school. That's how I saw it anyway. The studio discussion seemed a bit one sided to me. Felt sorry for Nikki the technology expert who met a lot of opposition from Gail the head teacher, the two presenters, and the disgruntled multitudes who got in touch.

I've worked with computers since leaving education. One result of this is that I can't do joined-up writing. Sorry if that's a shock. I wasn't taught it very well at school and never had the need to practise afterwards. I can print unjoined letters if needed - and it very occasionally is.

How did you understand the word "print" in the previous sentence? I meant using a pen or quill on this occasion. But if you were thinking about a box on a desk with paper coming out, then welcome to my world!
I have a template on my computer for printing post-it notes. But the software equivalents are far superior anyway.
I do wish I'd been taught to type at school though. That would have been vey useful over the decades. By way of a thought-experiment, I imagined that I was my own time-travelling primary school teacher. Then, if forced to make the choice, I would definitely teach my younger self to type rather than to write.

My only concern over children being taught to type is that it may become outdated. Possibly. It hasn't happened yet, although I now trust my phone to call home using voice control whereas I didn't a few years ago. Dragon dictation works better than I thought it would. And the free google app for iPhone can do google searches by speaking into it. But it doesn't always work. Sometimes it gets it badly wrong. And because computers are very stupid, it doesn't know how badly wrong it is.
The question is, is it easier to speak and then make corrections by retyping, or just type the thing in the first place. The balance may changes as computers get slightly smarter.

And so, here's the biblical support for voice controlled word processors:

Psalm 45
1 My heart is stirred by a noble theme
as I recite my verses for the king;
my tongue is the pen of a skillful writer.

Location:Shed

Cathedrals

Re-reading last week's theology this week, before I forget it.  Been looking at how the parousia passages might just refer to the destruction of the temple in AD 70.  Jesus seems pretty clear that we don't need the Temple any more because we are all living stones.

So why cathedrals?

Is that a good use of our resources?  Maybe not, but it would be a shame to knock them down.  So we're off on a cathedral tour of the South West soon - Gloucester, Exeter, Salisbury, Winchester, and back via Coventry.  Maybe get to Hereford, Bristol and any others around.

It's easy to find all the information to do this - when is evensong, why are the disabled toilets closed, how long does the cafe stay open, what's on the restaurant's menu?  Cathedrals have websites.  They even tell you where they are so you can satnav to them (except for a couple - you foolish cathedrals!  It's really annoying when you don't put the postcode on your website!)
What did we do before we could get all that information?  Would you just go down to Winchester because someone told you there's a cathedral there, and hope you could get in?  Was life more exciting then?  I don't remember, and it's only 10 years ago or so.  How did we know anything?  I know everything important is in the Bible, but there's plenty of other stuff that's pretty useful too!


Matthew 24
 ¹ As Jesus was leaving the Temple grounds, his disciples pointed out to him the various Temple buildings. ² But he responded, “Do you see all these buildings? I tell you the truth, they will be completely demolished. Not one stone will be left on top of another!”



One wonders if this is the fate of our cathedrals.  I would be a little surprised though.

Magritte

Been to Liverpool today to see the Magritte exhibition in The Tate gallery. Had quite a nice, if rather solitary day sampling cappuccinos. Did a bit of reading too but mostly tried to relax. Nearly got the hang of it now.

Magritte is a famous Belgian surrealist painter. (Not that many people can name more than two or three surrealist painters in total.)
He's famous for painting a picture of a pipe with the words underneath that said "this is not a pipe". Meaning it was a picture of a pipe. It was mostly in French when he did that, but they had an English version too.
His most famous image though is perhaps the man with an apple in front of his face. You can probably see it by following this link:
Son of Man (better not put the picture here as it's copyrighted).

I remember seeing a man like that in a Yes video. And in the (inferior) remake of The Thomas Crown Affair.

An interesting title, "Son of Man". I probably read religious motifs into paintings when they're not meant. (unless it's in the eye of the beholder anyway).

Men in bowler hats, apples, clouds, wooden balustrades. Magritte defined, developed, and deployed his own unique language of icons. His pictures are sometimes wondrously imaginative - if faintly disturbing.

My favourite picture, or rather series of picture, Dominion or Empire of Light look quite ordinary at first. There's some normal houses and buildings, some with feeble lights inside, and a glowing streetlamp outside. It's quite dark and hard to make out many details. But then you look up and the sky above the buildings is the bright blue of a summer daytime. It's as though the people below are living in darkness, doing what they can with their feeble electric(?) lights, while above there is clear daylight that they just can't see. A bit metaphorical that, certainly for those of a religious persuasion.

Isaiah 9: 2
The people walking in darkness
have seen a great light;
on those living in the land of deep darkness
a light has dawned.

Location:Tate Liverpool

Cars

Double blogging today as I didn't get round to it yesterday.

Today is the Third Sunday After Trinity in the church's annoyingly inconsistent calendrical system. For others, it's the First Sunday after Wimbledon, Sunday Next Before Golf, or British Grand Prix Day.
Today a red car won. This is partly because they changed the rules yesterday to make it harder for the blue cars to win. I've only just worked out what happened to Jenson Button - I'd nodded off to sleep at that point. I was doing pretty well before that too - I did once fall asleep during the parade lap, before the race actually starts. Normally I keep awake by filing my music in alphabetical order or something similarly tedious. I can fully understand why people do knitting while watching TV. Eating, drinking, surfing, blogging, anything that doesn't take too much brainpower goes well with watching TV - which by itself is just a little too boring.

Someone was complaining about Formula 1 during a theology lecture last week. Can't remember why it came up. I think it was the environment. Which F1 is bad for. I pointed out that a few people driving cars around a circuit is irrelevant next to all the journeys made by over 100 000 people travelling there to watch. And so football is environmentally much worse than F1. Also, useful F1 technology makes it's way into production cars. They're playing with a Kinetic Energy Recovery System at the moment. Brakes are bad for the environment - I try not to use them. They destroy momentum, which you then have to replace by using more fuel. So a KER system usually charges a battery from braking energy that is otherwise wasted.

The last time we thought about buying a new car we looked at a hybrid. It was a bit too expensive though. So we ended up with same old 1.4 petrol model, but with iPod connectivity (obviously this is vitally important). Still, I hope next time we get a car, we can get one that plugs in to the mains for charging.

Might have a few days holiday later this week, and it's my tradition to buy a thoroughly unedifying car magazine to celebrate. There's a new one called iCar. It says it's about about cars that are efficient, intelligent and fun; "cars that will enhance your life without spoiling everyone else's". I look forward to reading it, possibly in a traffic jam on Friday.

There's an alternative translation of WWJD - What Would Jesus Drive? A Prius rather than a Veyron, probably. Maybe a Skoda (which my iPad amusingly changes to "Skids") - favourite of many a bishop. But first of course comes the question, WJD? When he used transport, it was a donkey rather than a magnificent warhorse that many had expected. Humility in our choice of automobile is not often our first thought. Environmental impact, insurance cost or number of cupholders tend to come first.

One of my ex-colleagues has put a picture of his mid-life crisis on Facebook - It's a Porsche convertible. I'd much rather have my reliable but slow, 5-seater Civic. But I wish I could plug it in. And I wish it was yellow. Or green or purple. But every time I drive it, I try to remember what a blessing it is to be one of the just 8% of people in the world who can afford to do so.

Zechariah 9:
9 Rejoice greatly, Daughter Zion!
Shout, Daughter Jerusalem!
See, your king comes to you,
righteous and victorious,
lowly and riding on a donkey,
on a colt, the foal of a donkey.
10 I will take away the chariots from Ephraim
and the warhorses from Jerusalem,
and the battle bow will be broken.
He will proclaim peace to the nations.
His rule will extend from sea to sea
and from the River to the ends of the earth.

Location:Silverstone. By proxy.

Printing

Went to the Bible study at the cathedral this morning.  Canon Jules talking about Noah's flood.  Quite interesting.  We didn't get to the animals two-by-two bit though we did mention Gilgamesh and chiasmus, so it was quite learned.  Liked the bit about how God's bow now points up and away from the earth rather than hanging over it Damoclese-style.

Genesis 9:17
¹⁷ Then God said to Noah, “Yes, this rainbow is the sign of the covenant I am confirming with all the creatures on earth.”
(follows from the verse here)


At the service afterward (surprise, surprise - a Eucharist) I sat in suitably anonymous solitude (that's what cathedrals are for, I think?)  Until I was joined by a young couple who'd turned up 2/3 of the way through, without any books.  I felt bad about this and gave them mine.  After all, I should be able to remember the words by now.  I mostly did - except for the last hymn, which is one of those that you know the first couple of lines and then get lost.  Thankfully I was able to log on to the free wifi and download the words to my phone.  I appreciate that it might have looked a bit odd to the more traditional churchgoers - that I was singing a hymn from my phone.  This is one of the many disadvantages of not having a screen in church.

Here's what cafe church would look like at the cathedral, with a big screen.

The church has often been at the forefront of technology.  We were early adopters of books and the printing press.  What is the next step?
It's quite clever that you can now get a 3D printer.  That means you can print objects rather than just flat sheets of paper.  Think of it like an inkjet, that prints a layer of plastic ink.  Then does the same again on top, so it slowly builds up layer upon layer until you have a picture in 3 dimensions.  I don't think it's quite that simple - maybe the video below will help.
Don't know what use the church could make of this - other than tacky merchandising ( at which we're already sufficiently adept.)  Crafty stuff for kids, probably.  Suggestions welcome...

Law

Back in the shed after a good week at Nottingham. Theology now fully topped up. In 5 small areas anyway. Great to meet a variety of people from around the UK, all wanting to learn. Somehow, at the lunch table I got the job of defining evangelicalism - which wasn't easy. Conservative, open, charismatic, liberal. And I thought it had something to do with evangelism when I went to college.

Today we finished with 3 sessions on Old Testament law. Not as bad as it sounds. We looked at the version 2.0 laws in Deuteronomy that are updates from Exodus and Leviticus. And how Pharisaical "hedging" of the law (extending it a bit to make sure you don't break it) had led to racism.

Whereas the Pharisees added more laws as they interpreted the Torah, Jesus reduced it to one thing - love - in 2 simple commandments.

I wondered if Jesus would have obeyed the law without knowing it? It seems he did know the law extremely well anyway so it's hypothetical. But to fulfil the law would be to always act out of love in such a way that the law is always fulfilled.

I think.


Romans 10:4
Contemporary English Version (CEV)
4 But Christ makes the Law no longer necessary for those who become acceptable to God by faith.

Footnotes:
Romans 10:4 But Christ makes the Law no longer necessary: Or " But Christ gives the full meaning to the Law."

Location:Shed

Top theology

Another couple of days of topping up my theology at St John's - and no time to blog. Though admittedly did find time for a trip down to the local last night.

Wednesday was mostly looking at the end of the world. With Andy Angel, who was a student at St John's the same time I was. He still likes his chaos monsters, which he'd investigated further over the last 10 years or so.
I think the main point was about how many bits of the Bible that talk about judgement are actually talking about it within history rather than at the end.
I was pretty worn out by the end of the sessions, but that was partly because I hadn't had a break all day. And that was because Christina had asked Tim to ask me to do Morning Prayer today. (You don't even think of saying no to Christina.) So I spent my break editing a PowerPoint I'd used there 9 years ago, and finding volunteers for readings and things.

Morning Prayer went well I think, largely thanks to the kind folks who'd volunteered their help.

Today's topic was "The Evangelical Atheists". Much more like home ground for me. We had a song from The Script with some brilliant lyrics.

Tim Hull (who's working on an excellent timeline resource thing) used lots of videos and visuals, which made the day fly by. We had clips from Root of all Evil, Creation, and Paul. My favourite was Russell Stannard explaining how the big things in science tend to be arrived at through cumulative evidence. So for example the Big Bang has about 5 different proofs, though each one on it's own is weak and deniable. But put them all together and it makes sense. And it's exactly the same with God.


A few verses from yesterday. Note that for some reason, the last verse never made it into the Left Behind novels!

Luke 17 (ESV)
34 '"I tell you, in that night there will be two in one bed. One will be taken and the other left. 35 There will be two women grinding together. One will be taken and the other left." 37 And they said to him, "Where, Lord?" He said to them, "Where the corpse is, there the vultures will gather"'

Location:Woodside Rd,Nottingham,United Kingdom

Desert

Great chocolate desert at St John's. I mean dessert. But obviously someone messed up with those spellings.

Today we had David Runcorn talking to us about deserts. Which are more theologically sound than desserts. In fact, something we mentioned was that sometimes God cuts down on our food so that we will learn to find it ourselves. Spiritually, of course.

Also, Deers panting for water can detect it up to 6 miles away. Or they die. (There are deer in the park next to the Travelodge. They are calving at the moment, which means dogs are banned. So I had a wonderful dog-free run around the lake this morning. I guess deers don't pant if there's a big lake around. )

Water takes on a special significance in the desert. We came to St John's almost 12 years ago and met George Bebawi, one of the tutors, who was from Egypt and knowledgeable about deserts and spirituality. We were all in floods of tears, and he was the first person i heard use the phrase, the gift of Tears: in the Eastern tradition it's like the gift of tongues in the West. (Greg Nanz, Ephraim the Syrian, John Climacus, isaac the Syrian and others who I never heard of were into this. )
They say tears are a continuation of our baptism, or baptism of the Spirit.


According to some greek word in Mark (peristeran), the Holy Spirit dove is actually a wiry wood pigeon that lives in the wilderness. Coincidentally I took a picture of some doves this afternoon.

Mark 1:
9 At that time Jesus came from Nazareth in Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. 10 Just as Jesus was coming up out of the water, he saw heaven being torn open and the Spirit descending on him like a dove. 11 And a voice came from heaven: “You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.”
12 At once the Spirit sent him out into the wilderness, 13 and he was in the wilderness forty days, being tempted by Satan. He was with the wild animals, and angels attended him.

Location:Desert

Church Growth

Back at my old college St John's for Top Up Your Theology week. So we have a group of about 18 students' half of whom are clergy, and half of them ex-St John's. There is a different speaker every day Today was Bob Jackson on his specialty - church growth. Bishop James likes church growth. God likes church growth. The are plenty of organic metaphors in the Bible to do with the growth of God's people.

So, plenty of practical things came out of the venerable Bob's sessions.
I came in vaguely useful at one point because no-one else could figure out how to turn off the annoying noise, emanating from a speaker. Not Bob, obviously. anyway, here's some things about church growth:


Long interregnums are bad because the church has to reorganise twice

Decline is not down to external factors - social change etc. It is down to how we do church.* We can see this because the baptists are growing, the Methodists shrinking in the same social environment.

In our postmodern world, personal testimonies are more valuable than sermons.

There are 3 million people in this country who would try church if someone took them.

90% of people who try a church don't come back.

If a church thinks of itself as friendly, it may be that people already there are so friendly with each other that they ignore any newcomer.

To get a good idea of church attendance, the best way is to make a list of people you think belong.

Clergy numbers have reduced dramatically: 11080 in 1990 - 7770 in 2013

Many more people listen to Radio 1&2 than Radio 3 - our music needs to reflect this.

Don't focus on numbers - focus on quality, and numbers will follow.

* and, of course, nothing works without prayer.

1 Corinthians 3:7-9
"The one who plants and the one who waters really do not matter. It is God who matters, because he makes the plant grow. 8 There is no difference between the man who plants and the man who waters; God will reward each one according to the work he has done. 9 For we are partners working together for God, and you are God's field. You are also God's building."

So what do you think? Comments below please!
It's easy now - you don't need an account or anything complex.

Location:Nottingham

Early

Up at some stupid hour this morning to get to Nottingham for 9. They have Prayer for the Day on Radio 4 at this time.

According to this report, a bishop said that services are too long: good for him!

Addressing the Lichfield Diocesan Synod, the Rt Revd Jonathan Gledhill said the increased use of Eucharists by almost every church in the country had resulted in longer services that were “less simple and inclusive”. He said: “Morning Prayer used to last 50 minutes with a good sermon; family services only 45 minutes. But a sung Eucharist can takeanything up to an hour and a half.” He felt the move was not encouraging people to try their parish church: “this is a good way of saying ‘Go away’ to young people who come to visit us,” he told his audience.


Yesterday's ordination service was a choral Eucharist. Which makes me ask, Why?
At over two hours, it wasn't surprising people were starting to wander around at the back. There were some great bits in the service. I loved the Taize.

We'd been there 90 minutes. We'd done what we needed to. . And then for some reason we had a Eucharist, just to add an extra half-hour for no good reason.
Well ok, it's for a very good reason. If you're some way further up the liturgical candle than I am. I'm not even sure about the ritualisation what Jesus asked us to do at the Last Supper.

Was he actually just asking us to remember him every time we eat and drink?

Choral Eucharist in a cathedral is a wonderful thing. Especially when the choir sings Ave Verum Corpus as you take communion. but I can't help wondering what Jesus makes of it.

And after 2 hours+ I guess most people wanted to get on sharing a meal with a relative, friend or colleague who'd just been appointed to minister in the church

Location:Leaving

Ordination

Watched a film last night - "The Rite". Lynn's been wanting to see if for ages, but it's only just turned up on iTunes. It's based on a book that's based on some real people. The eponymous rite is the rite of exorcism. So it's probably controversial.
Dave the diocesan exorcist here reckons he's been to 2 or 3 proper cases in 20 or 30 years.
The film is surprisingly positive about the priesthood though.
Which brings me to today, where we went to the cathedral for the ordination of Deacons. We were cheering on Alan and Geoff, who will both be working in our team.
The verse I was given by several people when I was ordained was used in The Rite too, so it's appropriate today:

John 15:16 "You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit—fruit that will last—and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you"

Location:Shed

Eyes

I've fiddled with settings to make it easier to leave comments on this blog - you can click in the White box somewhere below.

Anon. Left a comment about how there are lots of colours in black that we can't see. Because we only see with our eyes a small part of the electromagnetic spectrum.
(Thinking about the EM spectrum I reckon it's limited only by the size of the universe and by Planck length. I was pleased to find that Wikipedia thinks the same. So it links the relativistic scale with the quantum scale, the two unreconciled poles of science.)
Anyway, as well as the colours of the rainbow, we can also feel the sun's rays - infrared on our skin. It's like having very poor eyesight in another part of the spectrum.
Some animals have eyesight that bad - just the ability to distinguish light and dark, and a bit of direction. I am becoming one of them - I got my first pair of glasses yesterday.

I have a camera with a big zoom lens. I took some photos of Liverpool from the top of the cathedral tower last night.
The local baptists have a zoom lens on their projector. Which is handy in some installations - I suggested it at Hawkshead.
For some reason our eyes don't have a zoom feature. So why can't eyes zoom in? I've read some science fiction stories when people get fitted with zoom eyes (though they would look a bit odd with the extra lens stuck out somewhere in front). Maybe it's because there's usually an alternative to zoom.
It's getting closer to what you want to look at. This is usually the preferable option. Instead of staying away from some thing or someone, we get close enough to actually listen to them. Maybe that's why eyes don't zoom.



1 Corinthians 2:9 New International Version (NIV)

9 However, as it is written:

“What no eye has seen,
what no ear has heard,
and what no human mind has conceived”—
the things God has prepared for those who love him—

Location:Shed