Virtuality

According to Oxford philosopher and general clever chap Nick Bostrom, the chances are that we don't exist. At least not in the way we think. It's more likely that we live inside a computer simulation, and suffer from an illusion that we are real.
There is some substance to his argument. Even Richard Dawkins thinks it's hard to refute. Because you can't use evidence. If you were in the Matrix, or were Captain Pike in the Menagerie, or just a brain in a jar, being fed a virtual reality that someone had chosen for you, you wouldn't know.* And you would have no way of finding out. Unless there was a fault with the virtuality - like a computer glitch - the available evidence would tell you that your virtual reality was actual reality.

So is real real or not? The honest answer is that we don't know, but it's probably better to act as if it is. Which, thankfully, is the default philosophical position of everyone who's never worried about it.
That would be to my mind a Christian approach to it. There may not be objective evidence we can point to that proves there is anything beyond this life. But there is plenty of subjective evidence. People talk about having an experience of God. And we can see their lives transformed in many cases. I believe that anyone can find that opening your mind to the possibility of God being real is an important first step. An honest seeking, followed by wilfully putting ourselves into God's hands is all that God is after. Then comes a knowing - a deep sense that God is at least as real as anything else.

I can't help feeling that Bostrom's scenario is a little too tied into current ways of understanding technology. Strip that away and there is something paralleling common theistic belief about the world.
I believe that we do live in a specially created reality. That we were put into a situation where it all seems quite real, but that there is actually more to it than meets the eye. There is a programmer, whom we call God. God created everything, including our consciousness and the environment that supports it; and takes an interest in what we do: how we respond to each other and to God.
A further parallel is what we believe about the afterlife. If you enter a virtual reality, such as an immersive video game, you will probably at some point get yourself killed. Except that's not the end. You just start again. Or maybe if you're tired of that game, you find a better one. Because it's not "you" that's died, it's just a character you were controlling for a time. Game Over is not.
And so when we shuffle off this mortal coil, we discover that reality is not what we thought it was. It's absurd to think we had it all worked out. Perhaps that's why there isn't too much in the Bible about it.
Oh dear too much text here already. I'll have to finish this off tomorrow.
Meanwhile, some intensely beautiful words from C.S. Lewis and then some Bible.

“And suddenly all was changed. I saw a great assembly of gigantic forms all motionless, all in deepest silence, standing forever about a little silver table and looking upon it. And on the table there were little figures like chessmen who went to and fro doing this and that. And I knew that each chessman was the idolum or puppet representative of some one of the great presences that stood by. And the acts and motions of each chessman were a moving portrait, a mimicry or pantomine, which delineated the inmost nature of his giant master. And these chessmen are men and women as they appear to themselves and to one another in this world. And the silver table is Time. And those who stand and watch are the immortal souls of those same men and women.”
C.S. Lewis, The Great Divorce, chapter 14

Revelation 21
1 Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth. The first heaven and the first earth disappeared, and the sea vanished. 2 And I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared and ready, like a bride dressed to meet her husband. 3 I heard a loud voice speaking from the throne: "Now God's home is with mankind! He will live with them, and they shall be his people. God himself will be with them, and he will be their God. 4 He will wipe away all tears from their eyes. There will be no more death, no more grief or crying or pain. The old things have disappeared." 5 Then the one who sits on the throne said, "And now I make all things new!"


* Captain Pike was in the best ever episode of Star Trek, which was cobbled together using clips from before it got dumbed down. If you knew that, you are a geek.
Brains in jars don't really work - almost the whole human body is required to provide the working environment for one.

Location:Shed

Limitless

Visited Christ Church Southport this morning. Great music group, and very friendly. They didn't seem to bother with liturgy though. Maybe that was at the earlier service. Maybe it was because they used SongPro or something instead of PowerPoint (just re-read a grove booklet - PowerPoint is intrinsically Anglican!)
Ormskirk MotorFest this afternoon.
Then home for F1, an omelette, and a film. "Limitless". Which was about taking drugs, or possibly drinking coffee. The premise is that there's a drug that enables you to use the 80% of your brain that you don't normally use, and so it makes you very smart. An interesting idea, although of course functional MRI scanning has shown that we do use pretty much all our brains anyway. The fictional drug in the film is far more powerful than any real neuroenhancer. I was hoping there would be a moral point about how the effects of drugs never lasts, but that seemed missing by the end.

There's still an embedded question of some interest though: what would it be like to be smarter? Cleverer? In a nod to Groundhog Day, the "hero" learns to play the piano, in just a few days. And is able to learn other languages, and analyse the stock Market. That kind of thing.

I always wanted to be clever. Really clever, not just quite clever or slightly above average at some things, or vaguely interested in the things that clever people are interested in. My memory has never been very good, though. I avoided memory-intensive subjects at school, like Latin. I liked chess until I found out that to be really good you had to memorise other people's games. The guy in Unlimited has perfect recall. My memory has never been very good.
Did I mention that?

We sang a nice song this morning - There Is a Day. Though I had to check for eschatological exaggeration. "We will meet Him in the Air" gets me a bit nervous It's the most obvious translation, though if the "Air" means the sky means the place of clouds means the place of God's presence then there's less levitation involved which I'd really prefer.
Once we get rid of the idea of an entirely spiritual life in heaven, and get down to the more biblical resurrection of the body (because that's what happened to Jesus) then we can start to ask, what kind of body? People in St Paul's churches had already got that far in their thinking; we are far behind them theologically in many ways.

I'd like to think the resurrection body has greater capacity in every way. I might finally be able to remember things. I wouldn't expect that we'd suddenly be able to play the piano. But the capability would be there. And with (enjoyable) study, the end result would I expect be better than anything we know in this world. Unless it's all harps, of course. Maybe we only get one string each? Then we'd only get harmony by learning to play together. The music group or orchestra models community. Or should do.

It's getting late now, so I'll get on to the technological metaphor for the resurrection tomorrow. Meanwhile, here's St Paul - possibly failing to know that seeds aren't dead, but merely dormant:

1Corinthians 15
35 But someone will ask, “How are the dead raised? With what kind of body will they come?” 36 How foolish! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. 37 When you sow, you do not plant the body that will be, but just a seed, perhaps of wheat or of something else. 38 But God gives it a body as he has determined, and to each kind of seed he gives its own body.

Location:Shed

Paper

In my capacity as a school governor, I regularly get emails which feature this injunction:

"Please consider the environment before printing this email"

This is a continual source of amusement to me. Why would I print an email? And why would I do so after considering the environment?
Surely if I consider the environment I'd be even less likely to print an email? Even less likely than 0%. Well maybe not zero. I have very occasionally printed an email for someone that didn't have a computer. Despite the growing ranks of silver surfers, I know there are still people like that!

Another similar thing happens every day when I get an email from United Christian Broadcasters. They're obviously well up with technology - in fact I downloaded their app this morning. I do like their daily devotional email, which is usually the first thing i read in a morning, and often hits the spot. (you could subscribe to it here i think) But then further down the page it says, Can we send you a copy? Meaning they'd really like me to have the paper versions of the thing I just read for this quarter. How odd! What a waste of a tree that would be.

Somehow many people have an underlying assumption - I could even say prejudice - that a 'hardcopy' of some information is the superior format. This seems to come from years of conditioning that an electronic version is somehow temporary, insubstantial.

A dear friend bought a laptop and used it to compose his sermons. He would then print them out, and having preached he would stash the paper away in storage. Then he would delete the computer file. Exactly the opposite of what I do! If for some reason I can't use my iPad and I do have to print out a sermon, the paper version doesn't survive the day. But the digital version is there for when I search my computer the next time the same topic comes up. (Not that I believe in recycling sermons - just the paper it's written on).

Paper is very fragile stuff. Having a single paper copy of any document or book is not exactly reliable. It doesn't compare well with the book I'm currently reading, which I have downloaded on 4 separate devices, and can be recovered from Amazon's servers should I somehow lose all 4.

Paper as we know it hasn't always been around of course - it is a relatively modern technology. Before that there was clay tablets, papyrus, and parchment. All rather fragile - and so the only way an ancient document is likely to reach us is if it was copied. More copies mean more chance of a whole document surviving down the ages.

This is True for the New Testament more than any other book. There are some quite staggering statistics about this that people should know about. There is some information on this in the Alpha Course book. For instance, there are just 8 surviving copies of work by the Ancient Greek, Herodotus, from the 3rd century BC. These copies date from the 10th Century AD. Or take Livy’s Roman History, written 59 BC – 17 AD. Again we don't have the original, but we have about 20 copies dating back to 900 AD. So what are the figures for the New Testament? How many copies of the originals do we have, and how long after the events were these copies made?
Well there are incomplete copies dating back to within a few decades, not centuries of the events themselves, and the complete document from about 350 AD. But the amazing thing is the number of those copies. Not just a few - 10 or 20 which are enough for any other document to be considered perfectly legitimate. In fact there are 5000+ Greek, 10000 Latin, and 9300 other language versions in existence. The Bible really is far and away the most reliable ancient document. Nothing else is even in the same league. And yet people question it's origins and its veracity, while glibly accepting Roman histories on comparatively the flimsiest of evidence.




John 5:39-40
You study the Scriptures diligently because you think that in them you possess eternal life. These are the very Scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life.

Location:Shed

Apps

Having directly caused the demise of Apple with my blog this week, I thought I'd continue in a similar vein today before I get back to something more theological.

Computing is short of words. There are massive new concepts being thrown up by technological advance, and English is not keeping up well. Sometimes an analogy is made between a technological object and an "old-world" thing. Like a "notebook" for instance, which is the industry word for a laptop. Monitor, screen, keyboard; all are horribly derivative terms. Mouse is an unusually good one - though I haven't used one of those for months. And I find it annoying that there is still no agreed term for a USB memory device - drive - thumb drive, pen-drive, memory stick, whatever you call it (but I might not!). PCs sometimes include Macs, sometimes don't. Occasionally they're politically correct police constables.

I used to write computer 'programs'. So called because a programme is a list of events, and computers process things sequentially. Then someone came up with the word 'application' - i.e. Software that puts your general purpose computer to a particular task. In what seems like a recent development, that too-long word has become abbreviated to "app". Which is a good thing because it differentiates and creates. (see Genesis 1)

Apple have a slogan, "there's an app for that". In case you missed it, they're saying that if you have an iPhone or similar device, you can get it to do pretty much anything by downloading an app from their store. Apple have made this incredibly easy to do, and have of course profited from it enormously. But also they have brought down the price of software - many apps are free, and even top-notch ones are only a few pounds. And it's also opened the way for some 'minority' software to be viable, and accessible.

There are some astonishing apps out there - like the one that translates signs from Spanish to English when you look at them through your iPhone's camera. I use a guitar tuner app, and another that gives you a complete guitar effects unit, and if I take my phone for a run it can tell me exactly where and how slowly I went.
There are many Bible apps: I use one that has simultaneous commentaries and several versions of the Bible.
Another couple of apps that I use regularly are daily devotional ones.

MyCofE was produced for the church of England, and has the text of several daily services available every day, both BCP and CW.
It is technically outdone though by the Divine Office app, of a decidedly Catholic persuasion. I actually prefer this one because it has both a service text and an audio track of some people saying the service. There's even an option to show you where in the world people are currently praying! (using that particular app, anyway). It's quite amazing to think of all the people around the world in prayer at one moment. If technology can help us to visualise that, to see God's point of view, then surely it is a good thing.


Matthew 5:14
"You are like light for the whole world. A city built on a hill cannot be hid.

Location:Shed

Apple 2

Apple Inc. (formerly Apple Computer Inc.) is an American consumer electronics company that was the world's most valuable company (for a time) this month. It changed the way the way people buy music from physical formats (CDs) to digital downloads, and will probably do the same with video.
Many people simply like and buy their products; but for some, there seems to be a 'brand loyalty' that borders on the religious.

I ventured into the world of Apple because of the iPhone. That was the top of a slippery slope and I now have 4 or 5 Apple things. But I hope I keep them in perspective.
For some years though I have known people who owned Apple Macintosh computers that insisted on telling me how their Mac was better than my Windows PC. In most respects they were probably right. The interesting thing is that they really felt the need to tell me. If only everyone in church was as enthusiastic about evangelism as some of the Mac owners I've known!

Apple devotees (fanboys) sometimes even develop the idea that Apple are always right, even when they are wrong, and need to be defended against the ignorant masses of unbelievers. In reality Apple make mistakes (e.g. Newton, one-button mouse, MobileMe reliability, bits of OSX Lion) - and these should be admitted and amended rather than denied and defended. But in some people's eyes, the Apple is perfect.
There is of course a doctrine of the perfection of God; but a parallel I see in this is more to do with defence of some more literal beliefs based on one reading of scripture, in the face of anything to the contrary.

According to many fans, Apple's resurgence in the last decade has been down to their esteemed leader, Steve Jobs (who today stepped down from his position of CEO due to ill health, though he remains chairman). He made famous appearances at Apple's staged events where he told the faithful how well Apple was doing and what they'd just invented. He was greeted with cheers whenever he appeared. Not many multinational company bosses get that kind of treatment. He has special clothes that he wears (black turtleneck & jeans) for giving his sermons to the faithful Apple congregation. And recently there was a kind of resurrection appearance. Mr Job's health is not good, but he came through a liver transplant well enough to take to the stage again before his retirement today.
I think I've done quite enough Messianic allusions there.

According to Andy Crouch (in an interesting article in Christianity Today), Steve Jobs peddles a 'secular form of hope'. In the first place, this hope is exemplified by technology itself. Because technology is maybe the one thing that clearly has always been improving. (This has a parallel in postmillennialism.) Apple has a knack of coming out with the shiniest, best-looking, most advanced new technology and bringing it to a market that it helps create with clever advertising. Technology is tangible, and so takes less faith than belief in any transcendent deity. If it is sold in a way that appears to provide some of the benefits of a 'proper' religion then it will have many takers.

But technology in general, and Apple in particular, have far less to offer than true religion. Tech can improve the lives of people (who can afford it) in the here and now. But in far less radical ways than the Christian gospel. Technology can be made to serve the gospel, but must never become an end in itself.

A shiny new Apple gadget can be exciting, and even extremely useful - but ultimately it can become a distraction from the real issues.

It can help us communicate, to stay in touch. But it can't create the love that makes us want to do that in the first place.

Then there is the ultimate reality of death. Even including some pathetic attempts at cryogenics, there is no technology that can keep people alive for ever. There is no technological hope beyond the grave. And so tech-hope itself is only short term.

The Apple faithful believe that there's always going to be a new Mac or iPhone just around the corner. But real faith is to believe that there is a purpose to everything, not just a user-interface paradigm that makes things work nicely together.

Christianity cuts across everything. Not just the small area of our lives that is enabled by technology. But it gives us a real reason for being. For wanting to create, belong, imagine, love, give, help, celebrate and all the important things in life. Technology can help us do those things, but it's never the reason why.

1Corinthians 13 (NLT)
11 When I was a child, I spoke and thought and reasoned as a child. But when I grew up, I put away childish things. 12 Now we see things imperfectly as in a cloudy mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity. All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God now knows me completely.
13 Three things will last forever—faith, hope, and love—and the greatest of these is love.

Apple 1

The apple has become a symbol of temptation, and giving in to it.
The fruit in Genesis isn't actually named, but that's the tradition.
Apple is also the name of the world's most successful technology company. Which this year became, briefly, simply the world's most valuable company. Some readers here are very familiar with the company. If you're one then you can probably skip this post and read the next one, where I'll look at Apple Inc. from a theological point of view.

Today I'm just posting a quick summary of what the company's been up to:

For many years Apple made computers. They were often a bit quirky, but came to be beloved of the creative computer using community. There was a certain snobbishness of some Apple users who looked down on 'lesser' Personal Computers which used DOS and then Windows.

Apple made a breakthrough 10 years ago with the first iPod. This used a computer hard disk to store music, which was played back through headphones. You could now copy most if not all your music off your CDs and keep it all instantly accessible on a device that fits in your pocket. This was a resounding success.

Apple continued to develop their range of computers too, to the point where they now offer the best machine in any category, albeit at a premium price.

But the big breakthrough was the iPhone - gadget combining a phone, iPod, internet, camera, and many many other functions. This was always going to sell in volume because phones sell in volume. The iPhone redefined what a phone could do, and everyone else has had to copy it.

Last year came the iPad - which invented a new category of device between phone and laptop. Apple have been remarkably inventive, and have reaped the rewards.

Despite all this, Apple's real strength has been combing software and hardware. They created excellent, user-friendly software for all their devices, inventing new user interfaces as they went.

And Apple changed the way the music industry works. Their online iTunes store is the way people buy music nowadays, rather than going to a "record shop". The next step is to do the same with video - and they're well on the way. Apple have skipped the Blu-Ray format entirely - it's no longer necessary. .

Apple's world domination should lead us to ask questions.
Why are they so successful?
Is that a good thing or not?
Are they leading us all into temptation with their shiny technology?
Is there a hidden cost to what they produce?

And a big question, which sounds a bit odd until you go a bit deeper:
Is Apple a religion?

After this substantial preamble I will look at that question in the next post.







Genesis 3:2-3
2 "We may eat the fruit of any tree in the garden," the woman answered, 3 "except the tree in the middle of it. God told us not to eat the fruit of that tree or even touch it; if we do, we will die."

Location:Cupertino

Organisation

What's the most expensive piece of technology in your church building?

In modern churches it may be a sound system or a projector - but is much more likely to be a central heating system.

However, if you have a 'traditional' church building It will probably be the pipe organ. They don't come cheap, and require constant maintenance from specialists. Other than the church roof, which is generally considered important, the "organ fund" provides perhaps the most common of financial pressures.

So why have churches traditionally invested so heavily in pipe organs?

There must have been some early resistance, given that the pipes were the most pagan of instruments, as played by Pan.

There was a time when church worship was led by mediaeval music groups. But with the invention of the organ (the most complex man-made object in existence at the time), I assume there was a spate of what I've previously referred to as "cathedral theology". The idea that if the pipe organ is the best musical instrument ever, that's the one we need in churches. Especially if the church down the road had one.

Alternatively, for some clergy, the organ represents an attempt to get the least number of people possible involved in leading the worship!


I have 4 weeks of sabbatical left now. Seems like it's coming to an end. And yet 4 weeks is still twice as long as any holiday I've taken. Ever. As far as I can think.
Still very odd to wake up with absolutely no plan for the day.
Time to take stock of what I have and haven't done.
One thing I have done is to teach myself a dozen or so worship songs, on the keyboard - half an hour a day well spent. The timing may be entirely coincidental, but I do apologise to our regular organist, who broke his arm yesterday, and wish him a speedy recovery!

I have a 2nd hand keyboard that a friend bought for my birthday, many years ago. I have an old 2nd hand Mac Mini computer next to it, and I spent £35 last week on a MIDI interface to connect them. Playing it all through an old music centre, I can now fill the room with the sound of a cathedral organ, or a symphony orchestra, or any other sample I can get into GarageBand. For a couple of hundred pounds in total.
It doesn't really sound like a proper church pipe organ though. But put through a decent church sound system, it would be close. Almost anyone could tell the difference. If you told them to listen for it.
But how much difference in audio quality is there between a digital system costing hundreds and a 'proper' organ costing tens or hundreds of thousands?
Can we really justify such a huge discrepancy between quality and cost?

When technology has become traditional, it's surprising how much money people are willing to throw at it!


Exodus 15:20-21 (ESV)
The prophet Miriam, Aaron's sister, took her tambourine, and all the women followed her, playing tambourines and dancing. Miriam sang for them: "Sing to the LORD, because he has won a glorious victory; he has thrown the horses and their riders into the sea."

Location:Shed

Invisibility

Decided to travel across West Lancashire and up the candle this morning for a service at St Cuthbert's. Rather good actually, thanks to Fr. Paul.
I was also impressed by the sound system. Didn't have any visible signs - no huge mixing desk at the back. Just little black speakers that I had to look hard to find. But with excellent sound quality. And the radio mic. was first rate.
All in all, then, some impressive technology. Because it wasn't noticeable. In fact, the most obvious technology on display was the light bulbs.
Ideally, technology should not be there, but it's effects should.
Impossible, of course, like the smile on the Cheshire cat.
But that is I think the ideal.

If you install a big screen at the front of a church, unsurprisingly people notice it. That is a problem. It usually takes a few weeks or even months before people forget that it's there, and concentrate on what's actually on the screen. Possibly some people never get there. I'm quite a fan of projecting onto walls rather than screens - it lessens the negative impact of the technology while still reaping the benefits (assuming the projector is bright enough).

There is a risk with any technology of the means supplanting the end that it's there for. Even, for example, with the ancient technology commonly called "books". Some people are interested in the way a book is bound, how it's cover is illustrated, the gilding on the edge of the pages. For some people, especially when buying a "Christening Bible" for instance, the book's appearance can become more important than the content.

In time, technology tends to get tinier. Which is good. Because that means it's disappearing. But it's still doing the same job, or probably a better one. A computer that would once have filled a house is now inside a mobile phone. In fact most of the tasks that needed a desktop computer 15 years ago can now be done on a smartphone. There are a couple of limitations though which currently limit the size of a phone.

Part of the genius of the iPhone was to throw away the stylus, but to have an onscreen keyboard. But keyboard size is fixed because of the size of people's fingers, and so there's no point trying to make a phone smaller.

More importantly perhaps, the screen needs to be big enough to show useful amounts of information. There have been attempts to put a projector in a phone, which might work indoors but isn't practical in many places.

It's likely that both displays and so keyboards will be able to be made flexible, even fold-up or roll-up before too long.

One technology used by musicians onstage has got a lot smaller in recent years. Musicians need to hear themselves, and this was normally accomplished by having wedge-shaped monitor speakers on the floor just in front, facing back toward the band. Anyone who's anyone now has in-ear monitors - wireless earphones that allow (for instance) the singer to hear mostly themselves (something singers usually like!

The visual equivalent of this is to wear some kind of glasses which contain a display screen (or even a retinal projector) I sometimes wonder if that's why sunglasses are 'cool'. One day we'll all be augmenting our realities by looking out at the world though display shades. I hope that doesn't frighten you too much!

I don't know what happens with our future bodies. Hopefully we won't be needing technology at all, so it will have completely disappeared.


1 Corinthians 2:9 (NIV)

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:Halsall

Bible Tech

When I was at theological college the principal encouraged us to carry a Bible around with us - not many students had that particular habit. I was glad that I had an electronic device that I did carry around, that had the NIV on it. I don't think that's what she meant. But it did the job. I've had a Bible installed on all the mobile phones I've had over the last 10 years. Because I could! It's something I carry around anyway. And unlike a paper Bible I can search the scriptures for a particular phrase - helpful for those of us not blessed with a good memory.

Which is why I am bemused by this email (reproduced below) that has been doing the rounds for a few years now (apologies if you're one of the people that forwarded it to me!)

Ever wonder what would happen if we treated our Bible like we treat our cell phone?

What if we carried it around in our purse or pocket?
What if we flipped through it several times a day?
What if we turned back to go get it if we forgot it?
What if we used it to receive messages from the text?
What if we treated it like we couldn’t live without it?
What if we gave it to kids as gifts?
What if we used it when we traveled?
What if we used it in case of emergency?

This is something to make you go . . . Hmm, where is my Bible?

Oh, and one more thing. Unlike our cell phone, we don’t have to worry about our Bible being disconnected because Jesus already paid the bill.

Makes you stop and think, where are my priorities?

And no dropped calls!

I'm not arguing with the sentiment expressed, but the author didn't seem to understand that the Bible is a text, not a book. (Not a 160 character SMS but) a library of writings that can be compressed to about a million bytes of information. Which is actually not much by today's standards (a compressed music track takes 4 or 5 times that, and a modern phone can hold thousands of those.)

Jesus read from a scroll at the beginning of his ministry. A few hundred years later the codex, or book as we know it, replaced the scroll as the most common form of data storage. And the transition to the book was largely driven by the rise of Christianity. The need to transport the received scriptures around the rapidly expanding early church fuelled the development of the technology known as a "book".
People tell me they'd rather have "a proper book" in their hands than be looking at a screen of some kind. I'm sure "books" will be around for many years yet. Perhaps it will take hundreds of years like it did for the scroll to die out. But the codex has been superseded by better technology.

Which brings me to another email which did the rounds. I think this is a bit sad, too. However, as It seems to bring pleasure to Luddites everywhere, you can have a read of it by following this link. It's just a little bit ironic that this was circulated electronically. But I'm told some people actually print out their emails! Now that I find hard to believe!


Luke 4:16-21 (ESV)
16 Then Jesus went to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and on the Sabbath he went as usual to the synagogue. He stood up to read the Scriptures 17 and was handed the book of the prophet Isaiah. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it is written, 18 "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has chosen me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set free the oppressed 19 and announce that the time has come when the Lord will save his people." 20 Jesus rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. All the people in the synagogue had their eyes fixed on him, 21 as he said to them, "This passage of scripture has come true today, as you heard it being read."

Location:Shed

Tech2

What is technology anyway? According the the dictionary, it is a practical application of science. And so we have to ask, what is science?
Without looking it up, I'll define it as a method of discovering how nature works.
A scientist tries to examine an aspect of nature by isolating it from the totality of the universe. This allows the scientist systematically to record the outcomes of an experiment, while varying a small number of parameters over which they have control. They then may be able to produce a theory to explain their results. Which may need further experimental verification, but hopefully will be able to both describe and prescribe real events.
(A really great scientist like Newton or Einstein somehow works out that the planets obey the law of gravity, or the speed of light is constant, even though experimental verification isn't available for years.)
Science has become increasingly mathematical, which makes it pretty difficult for the layman.

Back to technology - the practical application of science.
Is the wheel a technology? By the above definition, probably not. Unless we imagine a caveman starting with a triangle and knocking corners off until it rolled.
Once past the stone age though, one can imagine a rigorous methodology applied to the production of metal implements. And bricks etc. for building.
And construction techniques too - the norman or gothic arch surely is a result of studying fallen arches!
In Salisbury cathedral is a model of the building being constructed.
There is a large windlass that was used to winch huge blocks of stone up to the top of the building.
Technology was applied to the building of the great cathedrals. And when we consider the stained glass used, they were hardly going to use an inferior, older technique. They would have used the best available for God. The Temple in Jerusalem in all it's incarnations was a very splendid thing indeed.

There is a question of whether we should have cathedrals at all. Should we give God the best that we've so far been able to produce, or something second best that's more affordable? And give the cost difference to charity?
In practice, we have a habit of keeping the best stuff for ourselves, and giving to God the 10% that's left instead of the first fruits of our labours.

If we go along with "cathedral theology" - that only the best is right for God - then that leaves us with some technological questions.
Do we have the best lighting? The best heating? The best sound system? The answers as far as I've seen are generally no, no, and no.
(I will discuss more advanced technologies in a later post.)

1Kings 8 (TEV)
17 And Solomon continued, "My father David planned to build a temple for the worship of the LORD God of Israel, 18 but the LORD said to him, 'You were right in wanting to build a temple for me, 19 but you will never build it. It is your son, your own son, who will build my temple.' 20 "And now the LORD has kept his promise. I have succeeded my father as king of Israel, and I have built the Temple for the worship of the LORD God of Israel.

Location:Shed

Riot tech

Not sure if it's possible to get arrested for using the word "riot" online. It may be one day.

Saw an interesting article on the BBC's tech show, Click, about how technology has helped with rioting. It doesn't make the difference to whether people decide to go out on a spot of looting or not. But if you want to get a lot of people to one place and time, there are now very easy ways to do it. Doesn't always work, as there have just been people in Chester prosecuted for inciting a riot that didn't happen. But since nearly everyone carries a personal communication device with them, technology certainly facilitates group mentality.

That is of course the opposite of what some critics of technology said just a decade ago- that everyone's isolated in a room on their own hunched over a computer. Now computers are in everyone's pocket. And you can take them where you like. I like to point out to Luddites that even the simplest mobile phone is a computer. It's just a computer that's been crippled so that it only does one job (telephony), so as not to frighten them.

There is a slippery slope of telephone technology that people find themselves on:

People eventually decide that it would be handy to have a mobile phone, in case x needs to get in touch urgently or in case the car breaks down or ...
Then it turns out to be easier to use than their landline.
When people have got used to the idea of a portable telephone, the next thing is using it to send text messages. Because everyone knows someone else that texts them. And eventually they have to admit that texting is useful.
(This is the stage that many people seem to have reached now, whatever their age!)
The next thing is to start using a calendar or a game on your phone
And use the camera instead of carrying a separate one.
And then maybe It will play music or Even video.
And 'go on the Internet' and email.
And then finally realise that a modern phone will enable you to watch TV, navigate round a city, tune a guitar, translate a road sign, or read the Bible.
And of course there is mobile social networking.

The "killer app" (i.e. Definitive, vital, must-have application that makes the device worth having) for some phones is instant messaging. Blackberry phones are apparently the most popular amongst teenagers, largely because you get the ability to send free messages to your friends, or groups of friends. Ideal for organising a riot.

Facebook, Twitter and other services on other phones allow pretty much the same thing. But there's one important difference with Blackberrys.
Messages are encrypted, and sent to RIM (the Blackberrys' manufacturer) in Canada, before being delivered. The messages are therefore very private. Even to the police.
A few months ago i seem to remember they were almost banned in one mid-Eastern country. Because the government was worried it wouldn't be in control. Now we see that is a problem for us here in the UK too.
It's getting far too easy to start a riot.

RIM say that they will cooperate with investigations. The trouble is, the law doesn't cover large, non-specific criminality. It's meant to allow the authorities to investigate particular crimes by particular people.
Hopefully, lessons have been learned, and somehow the police will be able to snoop on messaging traffic inciting rioting. Which means snooping on all messaging traffic. Which is worryingly Orwellian, but there doesn't seem to be an alternative. Hopefully the monitoring will be almost entirely automated.

New technology is always forcing us to think or rethink through some ethical issues. If we believe that God knows everything we do or say or text, should we be worried if other people do too? If it's "for our own good"? Does the good of society in general always trump the rights of individuals?

Matthew 10:27 (NIV)
What I tell you in the dark, speak in the daylight; what is whispered in your ear, proclaim from the roofs.

Location:Shed

Tech1.0

It's finally time to get round to talking about technology & theology.  I'm in the last month of my Sabbatical now.  Almost.  Time to start putting it all together.  Or that's the plan.

Just finished reading 'Wired for Ministry: How the Internet, Visual Media, and Other New Technologies Can Serve Your Church' .  (Annoyingly unavailable on Kindle.)  Should have done a bit more research really - turns out this was written in 2004.  Which means it's out of date whenever the author (John P. Jewell) tries to go into detail.  To be fair he does write that ‘by the time you read this book, it will be possible to purchase a personal computer with a hard drive… that can hold one thousand gigabytes.’ 
Which indeed is the size of the disk in my iMac today.  He also goes on to talk about how a cell phone could be integrated with a PDA (electronic diary) and in the future we'll all be able to get one.  The device he's thinking of is now called a smartphone.  So the author, with me and indeed many geeky people at that time, were thinking about how you should be able to combine a phone, PDA, SatNav, Video & MP3 player, internet access, and camera.  Ideally on a device that just had a big touchscreen colour LCD.  

Thankfully, Apple were thinking that too, and the iPhone was released just 3 years later, in 2007.  Which really was one magical gadget to rule them all, as Gandalf might say.  Rather spoiled it for us tech-geeks because it does pretty much everything, and does away with the need for other gadgets.  

Thus began Apple's rise to the top of the tech companies pile.  Mostly due to the brilliance of the iPhone -and of course their online content stores.  But Apple didn't stop there.  


One thing that John Jewel got wrong was this.  He downplayed the financial clout of computer companies.  He says Microsoft was only 11% as big as Wal-Mart, and nothing like the size of the oil companies.  But in 2011, it is the technology companies that are starting to dominate the world.  
It's been reported this month that 'Apple Pushes Past Exxon To Become The Most Valuable Public Company In The World'.  (I will do a blog on Apple one day.  Very interesting case study.)
Theology is of course lagging behind the rise of technology, and the importance of technology to everything else.  A world revolving around information is different to one revolving around oil.  And shouldn't the world really be revolving around the Son?

Jewel says, ‘Technology provides new tools, but not new theology.’  I think he's wrong. More on that later.

I evernoted this CBS news video months ago; just got round to watching it.  Very interesting - some really good insights and points made.  (TV News coverage of religion in the UK is often appalling, but in the US it comes across as if the reporter has a clue what they're talking about.)
 
Can't think of a relevant scripture, so here's today's verse from the myCofE iPhone app.  On 2nd thoughts, maybe it does refer to anyone being tempted by an Apple.  Apple CEO Steve Jobs could be in big trouble!

Luke 17:1 NLT
One day Jesus said to his disciples, “There will always be temptations to sin, but what sorrow awaits the person who does the tempting!

I'm really hoping that getting an iPhone isn't giving in to a temptation to sin.  it's only sin if you're desiring something that's bad for you, or is too costly (or it belongs to someone else).  Probably.

(Yes I know that Genesis doesn't actually say it was an apple!)




Slightly but not completely off topic, I'd really like a bit of feedback on the new church website.  What did I miss off?  I need a couple more photos on there I know.  Please have a look.   Just realized it doesn't work too well on iPhone.  I'll have to do something about that.  (Does technology generate more work than it saves?  Would that be a good thing or bad?)

Misc

Someone once said that everything can be filed under "miscellaneous".
I think they worked for Apple - who seem to be uninterested in hierarchical filing systems, much to my chagrin.

I'm working up to writing about technology next week. Meanwhile, I'm being a bit random today. Or possibly eclectic.

Finished Tom Wright's Virtue Reborn. Much as i love Tom's stuff generally, can't say I was very impressed with this one. Took me a long time to read it, which is usually not a good sign. Tom gives the example of the pilot who landed his airbus on the Hudson river as someone who reacted well, out of a kind of "second nature". This is how he thinks virtues should work for Christians. Christian virtues are similar to Aristotelean ones, with the additions of humility, charity, patience, chastity etc. Tom does have a bit of grouch about feelings getting in the way of thinking. He says we need this spiritual exercise:

‘The person has to choose, again and again, to develop the moral muscles and skills which will shape and form the fully flourishing character.’
Which engages my smug mode at being right in a post when I started the book.

Continuing smugly on, I blogged a while ago about how the human brain isn't likely to get much better, at least in this universe. Someone's just proved this:
"Cambridge University researchers, meanwhile, have recently come across proof that the human brain has now evolved to its maximum size." (link)


Missed out the New World Translation from my last Bible post. I have a copy of this somewhere - can't remember if it was me or Lynn that procured it after extensive discussions with Jehovah's Witnesses. The translation is similar to many others, except where it has to be inconsistent to affirm their doctrine of the non-deity of Christ.
Funny bit on Unbelievable? the other day- someone had signed themselves off on a religious discussion as a JW.
Turned out it was short for Jedi Warrior.

And finally, I've been working with a professional development team (my brother Tim) to update St Peter's website. Hopefully it will be live by the end of today.

Random Bible verse today: actually one I just read in Wired for Ministry

2Corinthians 9:11-12 NLT

Yes, you will be enriched in every way so that you can always be generous. And when we take your gifts to those who need them, they will thank God. So two good things will result from this ministry of giving—the needs of the believers in Jerusalem will be met, and they will joyfully express their thanks to God.

Location:Shed

Bible4

One more thing on the Bible. Which Bible?

There are so many translations to choose from. Or maybe interpretations. If a speaker needs someone to translate their words into the language of the people listening, they get in a person called an interpreter. Translation tends to refer to written words. For some reason. But good translation always involves interpretation at some level - the translator/interpreter has to understand the meaning in both languages. Bad translation is easy - you can get Babelfish or Google Translate to do that.

The question you have to ask when you're translating is, how much interpretation do I do? The simplest way to translate is to use a computer to read every word in the original language and find an equivalent in the 'target' language. This is called transliteration. The problems with this are firstly that there often isn't a word-to-word equivalence between two languages. The most common example is probably the English word 'love' - which is used to transliterate several different Greek words. This is a misleading example though because English usually has many words for every one Greek word. (English's voracious appetite for absorbing other languages is one reason it's so widely used.)
Another problem is that languages like Greek and Latin don't rely on having the words in a certain order, as we do in English, so a list of transliterated words won't make much sense.
Anyway, the technical term for translating this way is "formal equivalence".

The other end of the translation spectrum (dynamic equivalence) is more dependent on humans. This involves reading chunks of the original, deciding what it means, and saying that in the target language. Possibly using very idiomatic, contemporary language. At its extreme this amounts to paraphrasing the original.

But there are all points on the spectrum between these - and most translations of the Bible into English are somewhere between these extremes.

I grew up with the RSV and NIV, but took a tip from a curate we had and got myself an interlinear New Testament. This has the Greek words, with their closest transliteration into English on the line below. It also has the RSV translation in another column. This is often helpful - you can at least see where the same word crops up in the Greek. It does take a bit of effort to learn the Greek alphabet so that you can then look up the words in a dictionary like Strongs. thankfully I can now take my iPad to Bible studies and just click on my interlinear bookmark (try it!). There are other online bibles available here and here.

Moving along the translation spectrum from formal to dynamic equivalence, the next stop is something like the (Authorized) King James Version. Which is why some people insist on it. (The NKJV is similar, but with less thees and thous. ) There are already a few turns of phrase in English here though.
In a similar zone we have the RSV (Really Safe Version!) and it's inclusive-language update, the NRSV. Which was the recommended version at my theological college. Because it's pretty close to the original, good for Bible study.

The NIV (Nearly Infallible Version) is very popular, and a pretty good mix of readability and faithfulness to the original. Though my OT tutor said sometimes it "papers over the cracks", theologically.

There are several modern translations that come next, like the Contemporary English Version and the New Living Translation. I quite like that one, but occasionally find something that makes me wonder, "where did that come from?". Which is even more a problem with the Good News Bible. This was written for people who don't have English as their primary language. I find it a good one for children. Usually Ok for Sundays. Not good for Bible study.

The Bible I have in the shed at the moment has a green plastic cover. I like green plastic. It's called The Message /remix. It's the last one i read cover to (green plastic) cover. Because it's a paraphrase, it's an easier read. It's therefore at one end of the translation spectrum (with the Living Bible and the Street Bible). The Message is great for reading, not much use for Bible study. It's quite good for liturgy sometimes too. It's in "American English" according to the website, and sometimes seems dated already. But, as translator Eugene Peterson says in his introduction to the Psalms, the most scholarly, accurate translations don't capture the poetic spirit of a prayer or a Psalm in the way that he tries to. And he often succeeds.


It's often helpful to look up several versions of a scripture. Often there are new meanings to be seen because of a different word here and there.
I''m afraid there's no "best" translation. It depends what you want it for, and what you're not used to.

The best-known verse in the Bible is possibly John 3:16. Our Greek tutor at college said that 'so much', i.e. an amount of love is not a good translation, pace NLT, GNB, MSG. But you can see this sense of the words creeping in through dynamic equivalence.
And the word translated 'world' in every version is the Greek word 'cosmos'. Which people usually think means 'the people in the world', rather than using the more obvious transliteration from the Greek word 'cosmos' to the English word 'cosmos'. If we think of Jesus saving the universe rather than just individual sinners, it give us a whole different emphasis on theology. And it comes down to the interpretation of just one word.

I can understand why in Islam it's important to keep the scriptures in their original language!



John 3:16

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. KJV

For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. NRSV

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. NIV

For God loved the world so much that he gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life. NLT

For God loved the world so much that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not die but have eternal life. GNB

This is how much God loved the world: He gave his Son, his one and only Son. And this is why: so that no one need be destroyed; by believing in him, anyone can have a whole and lasting life. MSG

Location:Shed

Bible3

Just finished Tom Wright's book Virtue Reborn. May do more on that later; for now I will content myself with his view on the difficult passages of the Old Testament.

Tom Wright says this:
"Avoid the easy solutions to these: that these bits weren’t “inspired”, or that the whole Bible is wicked nonsense, or that Jesus simply abolished the bits we disapprove of. Live with the tensions. Goodness knows there are plenty of similar tensions in our own lives..."

Tom also advises us to practice patience (i.e. I may not get this now), and humility (i.e I may not get what God is saying here).

He is a good evangelical, even if he doesn't get invited to all the evangelical meetings.


Paul Copan's views in his book Is God a Moral Monster I have already mentioned.


Bill Craig is an American defender of the faith who is feared by Dawkins. He says the idea was to drive the Canaanites out of the land, not necessarily to kill them. And there was no record of women and children actually being killed. He says the moral problem of why God would command a slaughter is an internal problem for Christian theists, but essentially God can do as he pleases. (link)

So maybe all that helps provide a cumulative case for a reply to why God does some seemingly bad things in the OT.

It is important to remember that Jesus is there throughout the Bible, like the word printed all through a stick of rock. And the character of God is revealed most clearly in Jesus.

I don't like the way people sometimes refer to the Bible as the "Word of God" (with a capital W). The Word, logos, Way of God is Jesus - not just a book.

Just started another new book, Wired for Ministry which says this:
"The Word, which binds the people of God to their Creator, moves from law to prophetic word, to flesh."
That's more like it.

One more post on the Bible: translations. Coming soon. Bet you can wait.


John 1:1,14
"1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God...14 And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. "

Location:Shed

Riot

I was intending blogging about the Bible today but there are other things on my mind. It's not looking good for the UK at the moment as we seem to have a breakdown of public order, from London to Liverpool. There doesn't seem to be any particularly good reason for it - people realise they can get away with a spot of casual looting and so they do it. The police seem ineffectual, fires burn out of control; right now the situation seems hopeless. I don't know what the answer is. Yet somehow I know that the answer is in the Bible after all. But where to look?

Let's start with rioting. Not literally.
Titus 1:6 in the KJV gives a checklist of requirements for an Elder:
"If any be blameless, the husband of one wife, having faithful children not accused of riot or unruly."

The word 'riot' doesn't make it into more recent translations, but I find it interesting that it's applied here to children rather than adults. A news report today said that there was now organised looting going on, with people driving around causing problems. But before that it was largely teenage rioters doing it for a bit of 'fun'.

So the biblical advice is for adults to live a life whereby their children are not out of control. Police have been asking parents to know where their children are. Certainly part of the problem is that too many just don't care.

Much of what has gone on seems to be utterly pointless criminality. Disturbing in itself - even the terrorism we've seen in London was trying to make a point. There's more to it though. Social unrest is generally symptomatic of people who feel disempowered, ignored. When people are losing their jobs, and essential services are being cut, while it still seems the rich are getting richer then it's not surprising that there is unrest. Economic injustice is of course a major theme in the Bible. Though perhaps that's to lend an unwarranted justification to most of what's been going on.

Social networks - like Twitter and Facebook - have taken some of the blame. These are enabling technologies. They enable us to do bad or good, as we choose. There was a time when the police had radios and few others did - and so had a communications advantage. That time has long gone.
There is a positive use of social networking going on, amid the (presumed) organisation of criminality. #riotcleanup appeared on Twitter, followed by a website for people wanting to help, not destroy.
This is one sign of hope in a desperate situation.

The other thing that cheers me is the response of Christians. Prayer vigils around the country. And especially Richard, whose response was to go on a late-night prayer walk.
There are signs of hope if we want to see them.

Jeremiah 29:11 NLT
"For I know the plans I have for you,” says the Lord. “They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope."


Update: Found this article from our local baptist 'bishop' Phil Jump.

Location:Shed

Bible2

I like that we stand for the gospel reading in church. We don't stand for the Old Testament reading, the Psalm, or even the Epistle. There's something special about those 4 books at the start of the New Testament that purport to be an actual record of God on earth in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. Not the background information. Not what people made of it later on. But the events of The Event. I guess that's why we treat that part of the Bible specially.

At the cathedral on Sunday, Canon Jules said that we should call the Old Testament the 'Hebrew Bible' instead. I think he doesn't like the idea that the Old Testament has been supplanted by the New Testament.
But that remark has the opposite effect - if the OT is the Hebrew Bible then the NT is the Christian Bible. So why do we need the OT?
That's the problematic bit - which does appear to have awful things like God-sanctioned massacres. I'd much rather stick to the NT. But the OT is accepted as canonical, and as my church says in the 39 Articles:

"The Old Testament is not contrary to the New: for both in the Old and New Testament everlasting life is offered to Mankind by Christ, who is the only Mediator between God and Man, being both God and Man. Wherefore they are not to be heard, which feign that the old Fathers did look only for transitory promises. Although the Law given from God by Moses, as touching Ceremonies and Rites, do not bind Christian men, nor the Civil precepts thereof ought of necessity to be received in any commonwealth; yet notwithstanding, no Christian man whatsoever is free from the obedience of the Commandments which are called Moral."


I think that means we need to look for Jesus in the OT as well as the new. It's saying we don't have to worry about not eating shellfish and suchlike, but should follow the "moral" commandments (which could be open to interpretation, especially if you're a shellfish or a pig, etc.!)


There are important reasons that I want to separate the OT from the New. I'm quite happy to believe the miraculous accounts of Jesus. But believing that God would order a massacre - as happens in the OT - is much harder.
Even if these were exaggerations, I don't like the idea of God sanctioning it. In trying to understand divinely inspired killing, there are only difficult options. Maybe God's view of life and death is so different from ours that it wasn't such a bad thing after all. (Something that had crossed my mind and is explicit in Paul Copan's book.) Or possibly the ancient Israelites just had then wrong idea of what God was telling them. This option cuts to the heart of how we understand the Bible, and isn't for everyone. Sometimes I think I know nothing about the Bible and should shut up!

Paul didn't have the NT in mind when he wrote this:

2Timothy 3:16
All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness,

Location:Shed

Harry Potter 7.2

Time for another occasional film review. Went to see the current and final Harry Potter film today. In 3D. Which wasn't, very. Excellent film though, doing as good a job with the book as anyone could hope. Well done, director David Yates (from St Helen's, my hometown).

In Christian circles, Harry Potter is viewed by many with great suspicion; and by some, not at all. I understand this perfectly well. Any story that features heroes who are witches and sorcerers would seem to fall foul of certain biblical injunctions (see particularly Deuteronomy 18). Christians are rightly wary of anything that has even the slightest flavour of the occult.

In fact you might want to stop reading at this point and pray for me. I suffer from a wildly optimistic streak that always makes me want to see good. Even in J.K. Rowling.

But first, what I don't like about Harry Potter is all the quasi-occult associations that sometimes build up around the story. I don't like the idea of children dressing up as witches and wizards even if it is to attend a book launch.
And there lies a paradox for evangelicals - the books have sold 400 million plus, and have encouraged countless children to take up reading. It would be nice to think they might in some cases move on to the Bible. It is shorter, after all.

If we deal with the stories themselves rather than what some people choose do do with them, I find some great positives. We can't refuse to read something because it mentions witches. So does the Bible. Some say they portray occultists as positive characters, and that's the problem. I can see that it could be, but we'd certainly have to throw away the Lord of the Rings and even the Narnia stories for the same reason. (I have heard someone say that all fantasy is evil).

On the other hand, we can pragmatically accept that the HP books and films are out there, are massively popular, and we need to deal with the phenomenon as best we can.

We need to see that the magic in the stories is not actually the subject matter. It's just the way the HP universe works, and functions much like technology does in ours. The stories are about relationships, growth, and virtue. And ultimately, the triumph of good over evil.

I'm going to spoil some plot if you read any further, so be warned. J.K. Rowling was interviewed in The Telegraph on the publication of the final novel, and revealed that it does draw heavily on Christianity. So much so, in fact, that to have revealed that in advance would have been to give the ending away. Here's a couple of plot points from the final book. Look away now.

Harry visits a graveyard, where he finds the inscription, "The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death". Later he finds something called the Resurrection Stone. He then chooses to sacrifice himself for his friends, going freely to meet his death, which he accepts without a struggle. He then finds himself in a strange, very light place, where some expository dialogue takes place, including mention of the function of his blood. The chapter devoted to this in the book is called "King's Cross". (How obvious is that!)
Harry returns to life, his followers are inspired, and he finally defeats evil.

It's an imperfect analogy, but that's a tautology anyway.
There are many other themes going on too. Redemption is a common one. The Snape character is fascinatingly balanced between good and evil, right to the end of the series. It turns out he is ultimately motivated by unrequited love, and was possibly the bravest character of all.
I like it when belief in good is ultimately rewarded.

1Corinthians 15 (KJV)
20 But now is Christ risen from the dead, and become the firstfruits of them that slept. 21 For since by man came death, by man came also the resurrection of the dead. 22 For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive. 23 But every man in his own order: Christ the firstfruits; afterward they that are Christ's at his coming. 24 Then cometh the end, when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father; when he shall have put down all rule and all authority and power. 25 For he must reign, till he hath put all enemies under his feet. 26 The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death.

Location:Southport

Bible1

More than one cathedral this year features an exhibition on the Bible. The translation authorised by King James (the AV or KJV) is 400 years old this year. Usefully, it's out of copyright and can be downloaded for free. Some people, ironically mostly Americans, think it's the only English version we should use.
I've been using it for BCP 1662 services this year. The beautiful, poetic language is part of our culture. Mostly. Except when you get things like this:

"And David said to Abishai, and to all his servants, Behold, my son, which came forth of my bowels..." (2Sam 16:11)

You wouldn't want surgery in ancient Israel.

Bowels are brought up again (sorry) even in the New Testament, translating a word that means something like "the stuff that's inside you".

11 O ye Corinthians, our mouth is open unto you, our heart is enlarged. 12 Ye are not straitened in us, but ye are straitened in your own bowels. (2Cor 6)

When we speak of someone as "big-hearted" or talk about a "gut reaction"' we're using a similar comparison. The Bible is full of metaphor, because its the natural way we use any language - Hebrew, Greek, English included.

Which is why it really annoys me when people decide, quite arbitrarily, that we must take the Bible strictly literally. No-one actually does that, because it doesn't make sense. But some people argue for a particular favourite doctrine of theirs on the basis of an over-literal reading of a verse or two. Often this is backed up by veiled threats, like "if you don't take this literally then you can't trust the Bible at all and you're not a proper Christian like me and..."

Jesus says he is a light, vine, bread, shepherd etc. But these are all pictures. As someone put it: when he says he's a door, he's not being wooden. None of the men I know takes literally the bit about plucking out your eye if you have a naughty thought when you see a woman.

We have to interpret the Bible, with the help of the Holy Spirit. There's no other way. Some people don't even like the word 'interpret', claiming they just read what's there, plain in black and White. In my experience, all these people have one thing in common. They don't use a Hebrew or Greek Bible- they rely on an English version, or 'interpretation'. Because translations invariably are interpretations. Word choices were made on our behalf. Some go as far as to suggest the King James translation itself is inspired. Thankfully, not many.

2Corinthians 6, Good News Bible
11 Dear friends in Corinth! We have spoken frankly to you; we have opened our hearts wide. 12 It is not we who have closed our hearts to you; it is you who have closed your hearts to us.

Which is why you can't really do a Bible study with this version, but it has its uses.

Location:ANE

Extra Time

I will have to take more time over time.  It's one of my favourite subjects, which means I waste lots of it.

Some theologians think that God is entirely outside time; some that God has to be part of the unfolding of events as determined by human choices and so must be inside time.  I think there is a case for a Trinitarian definition: God the Father is outside time, God the Son was (for a time) entirely inside time, God the Holy Spirit somehow mediates the presence of God into time.  Maybe.  More importantly, Jesus in his Resurrection breaks out of time and brings the future into the present (which is now our past!)

One of the consequences of God's eternality is to do with prayer.  C.S. Lewis seemed to 'get' this more than anyone else I read when I studied it.   God, being outside time,  can hear our prayers whenever we make them, does not have to deal with them in a period of time, and can actually answer them before we pray them!  C.S. Lewis said that the answers to our prayers have in some cases been built into the fabric of the universe.  Cosmic!

I gave a simpler example of pre-answered prayer when I had to write about it.  Imagine someone on a plane waiting for take-off - some Christian who is frightened of flying.  They pray that God will keep them safe on this flight.  Thankfully, God answered that prayer a few hours previously when he whispered in the ear of a maintenance engineer that there was a problem with one of the engines.  Causality isn't as limited as we often think.

Was listening to Justin on Unbelievable? today, who related a story of how a Christian charity on some far-flung island desperately needed some kind of supplies - and they needed them the next day.  So they prayed about it.  And sure enough, the parcel appeared the next day.  But according to the postmark, it had been posted 3 months ago.  So what was going on there?  It seems the prayer had been answered 3 months previously.  It's not theoretical, it happens.

And now the Bible.  Warning - after all that, you may just want to read just the first of these three verses and stop there!

Romans 8 (NIV)
 ²⁸ And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.
 ²⁹ For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters. ³⁰ And those he predestined, he also called; those he called, he also justified; those he justified, he also glorified.