iGod

A reflection for Good Friday - if you are religious or not

At noon, darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon. And at three in the afternoon Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Eloi, Eloi, lema sabachthani?” (which means “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”).

When some of those standing near heard this, they said, “Listen, he’s calling Elijah.”

Someone ran, filled a sponge with wine vinegar, put it on a staff, and offered it to Jesus to drink. “Now leave him alone. Let’s see if Elijah comes to take him down,” he said.

With a loud cry, Jesus breathed his last. The curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom. And when the centurion, who stood there in front of Jesus, saw how he died, he said, “Surely this man was the Son of God!” (Mark's gospel, the Bible)

My youngest daughter loves reading stories from her Children's Book of the Bible. I tend to let her chose one, which hopefully isn't too many pages. Amidst the other stories is the account of Jesus' death. The Church calls it Good Friday. To a child of seven or even a mature adult it is perhaps hard to see why this could in any possible way, shape or form be called a good day.

But here's the thing.

Even the most hardened of skeptics I meet admit that Jesus stood for life, love, justice and faith. Through history and society people have broadly cheered at his indignant approach to upsetting convention and exposing hypocrisy and abuse. But every hero apparently has his day and we get disprited when people don't live up to our hopes. Much like politicians and expensive footballers, I guess.

DId Jesus get too big for his boots or did the people big him up for their own needs? A large number really just wanted a king to lead a revolution and overthrow the Romans and live life again on their own terms again.

Last Sunday we rememembered Palm Sunday, the day when Jesus rode into Jersusalem at the time of the Feast of the Passover, not as a people's king or a vainglorious rebel leader, but as a pilgrim on a way to a festival on a donkey and colt.

On Maundy Thursday we remembered how he met with his closest disciples for the Passover meal, a meal that symbolised the salvation of the Jewish people, by the retelling of the story of their exodus from Egypt many hundreds of years previously. They had a last supper together in a upper room, taking the bread made without yeast and the cup of wine and passed them around to each other.

The night would end in betrayl by one disgruntled militant activist member whose trust in Jesus had worn thin by a lack of perceived action.

And so we come to Good Friday or bad Friday, depending on your viewpoint as a child or not. It may interest you to know that the cross was known as such a horrendous form of Roman torture and death that for the first part of the Church's development no reference to the cross as a symbol is to be found. it was only latterly in the Western church first that the cross started to be depicted as a main symbol of Christianity and that was through art as much as anything else.

Today, Jesus' death is overlooked by many in a secular society because he is seen as a narrow-minded, judgementalist, religious bigot out to conform everyone to one view, regardless of other views, cutlure etc.

However I have to say this is what others have made him, not himself. Much like in his day.

This 'king' did not live up to socio-political expectation at so many levels.

Firstly he never owned property, he always had something borrowed to him. His parents borrowed a stable (not born in a palace). He borrowed friends' houses to stay in (no possessions of his own). He borrowed a donkey and colt to ride in Jerusalem (not a steed). He borrowed a guest house room for the last supper. And at the end he even borrowed another man's tomb to be buried in.

Recently I heard atheist Rick Gervais say in an article in the New York Times that he thought he was a better Christian than Christians because he kept the 10 Commandments. He had come across those who profess to follow Jesus but had dubious actions, citing Ghandi who said. "I like your Christ, I don't like your Christians." Often the church has to be shamed by unexpected sources for it to come to its senses.

Sometimes It is hard to see beyond the moment and get perspective for Christians, agnostics and atheists alike. Easter gives our lives perspective whether we are religious or not.

So what makes Jesus' life, death and resurrection relevant for us today? Because his death historically happened in the hands of a secular institution, the Roman Empire, and so stopped it from becoming a small religious regional affair, making it unknowingly everybody's business. Hence, becoming a world faith across all cultures and backgrounds today.

The Easter story slows us down to remind us of our falibility and human weakeness. It reminds us that untimately we all want to be saved from something or ourselves.

Beyond being one of the earliest human rights activists, Jesus Christ demonstrated a purity that most of us, if we are honest with ourselves, yearn for. It came with great and awful sacrifice.

We want hope. We want to believe in better. We, therefore, need to be reminded of the pain to gain.

So when I wish you happy Easter, I mean 'happy Easter!'

May you find peace and love in the power of his life, death and resurrection.

ASD

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Quote by Michael Ruse

I have been reading an fascinating article by British-born atheist philosopher professor Michael Ruse, who interestingly has little time for neo-atheists such as Dawkins and co. (Mind you, it probably isn't helped by Dawkins laying into him in his book The God Delusion.)

But it is this quote that grabbed my attention, bearing in mind he doesn't believe:

"I have little time for someone who denies the central dogmas of Christianity and still claims to be a Christian, except in a social sense. No God, no Jesus as His son, no resurrection, no eternal life - no Christianity."

Now is it just me or does that sound like something St Paul might say?

ASD

An Easter Story

As we lead up to the April Bank Holiday Weekend you come to expect the usual stories, articles and columns being taken up with surveys saying less and less people know the meaning of Easter, along with  talk of further decline in church attendance, and new so-called evidence for debunking the Resurrection. It has become a tradition in itself. 

However, this week the New Statesman has given over some 18 pages to ask: "God - What do we Believe?". In the midst of all the comment there appears to be a backlash against neo-atheism. AN Wilson announces in a thoughtful cover article for the magazine that he is abandoning his fellow atheists. He goes on to say that he is making a slow journey back to believing in God again after twenty years.

"By nature a doubting Thomas, I should have distrusted the symptoms when I underwent a “conversion experience” 20 years ago. Something was happening which was out of character – the inner glow of complete certainty, the heady sense of being at one with the great tide of fellow non-believers."

In Third Way, the thinking Christian's magazine, the poet Andrew Motion reflects wistfully, "I don't believe in God - though I wish I did, and I can't stop thinking about it so who knows what might happen one day?"

Wilson and Motion talk of uncertainty, doubt and faith in terms that are probably far more familiar to the vast majority of the British - many of whom still describe themselves as believing in God, whatever they mean by that - than the certitudes used by Dawkins. New Atheism may come to be regarded as winning a battle but losing the war.

Although it is still too early to say for sure, maybe the voice of reason is starting to be heard over the tub-thumping of Dawkins' zealous followers. Maybe now a grown-up dialogue can be re-established for the 21st century. Maybe now we can move away from the medieval stereotyping of God.

My concern has not been Dawkins contribution to making us think about the metaphysiccal through scientific theory, but the practical out-workings. It just feels thin and undefined and leaves me asking: how exactly does it fill the void of Christianity with any adequacy?

The Christian faith is so weaved into the very fabric of our legal, political and education system, and so our society, it deserves a respectful debate. Thus, Dawkins, Hitchens and co. rightly need to be put in the docks just as much as those who would claim outlandish things in Jesus' name.

Anyway, by yourself a copy of the New Statesman, or for that matter Third Way, and join in the fun. Meanwhile, I'm off to buy a Cadbury's Creme Egg.

ASD

 

 

Richard Dawkins causes stir with suggestion that there could be a God

 I am grateful to Quaerentia for tipping me off about the article by Melanie Philips in this week's Spectator.

She was at the lecture at the Natural History Museum in Oxford for the debate between John Lennox and Richard Dawkins.

Here's an extract:

"Dawkins was badly caught off-balance by Lennox’s argument precisely because, possibly for the first time, he was being challenged on his own chosen scientific ground.

This week’s debate, however, was different because from the off Dawkins moved it onto safer territory– and at the very beginning made a most startling admission. He said:

A serious case could be made for a deistic God.

This was surely remarkable. Here was the arch-apostle of atheism, whose whole case is based on the assertion that believing in a creator of the universe is no different from believing in fairies at the bottom of the garden, saying that a serious case can be made for the idea that the universe was brought into being by some kind of purposeful force. A creator. True, he was not saying he was now a deist; on the contrary, he still didn't believe in such a purposeful founding intelligence, and he was certainly still saying that belief in the personal God of the Bible was just like believing in fairies. Nevertheless, to acknowledge that ‘a serious case could be made for a deistic god’ is to undermine his previous categorical assertion that

...all life, all intelligence, all creativity and all ‘design’ anywhere in the universe is the direct or indirect product of Darwinian natural selection...Design cannot precede evolution and therefore cannot underlie the universe."

More starling still came the revelation that he believed that extra terrestial life from another planet

"Even more jaw-droppingly, Dawkins told me that, rather than believing in God, he was more receptive to the theory that life on earth had indeed been created by a governing intelligence – but one which had resided on another planet. Leave aside the question of where that extra-terrestrial intelligence had itself come from, is it not remarkable that the arch-apostle of reason finds the concept of God more unlikely as an explanation of the universe than the existence and plenipotentiary power of extra-terrestrial little green men?"

Anyway, have for a read for yourself.

ASD

Saving faith from irrelevance and extremism

Our former prime minister Tony Blair said last night: "For religion to be a force for good, it must be rescued not simply from extremism, faith as a means of exclusion; but also from irrelevance, an interesting part of our history but not of our future." Too many people saw religious faith as stark dogmatism and empty ritual, he added.

"Faith is reduced to a system of strange convictions and actions that, to some, can appear far removed from the necessities and anxieties of ordinary life," Blair said. "It is this face that gives militant secularism an easy target."

He was speaking at his first lecture as part of the launch of the Tony Blair Faith Foundation and seems to make some thoughtful comments in the process.

Read more from The Guardian's blog here.

Have a good weekend.

ASD

Morality and the Anti-God Squad

As someone who is observing the neo-atheist movement I am interested to see how academics are viewing the ‘Evangelists’ of the new anti-God movement. Last weekend, The Guardian included a polemical piece from John Gray who tackled the protagonists’ view of traditional morality head on.

The writer of Black Mass: Apocalyptic Religion and the Death of Utopia said it is time, in essence, to call to account the views of the atheists who claim a new morality model is waiting to be had.

Martin Amis wrote recently “Opposition to religion occupies the high ground, intellectually and morally.” How? And what exactly has he got in mind when he makes such statements?

Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens’ books are selling in their droves. Such provocative titles such as The God Delusion which has sold 5m alone and God is not Great have been a challenge to the church, but also a gift.

Not since the Victorian times have we seen such militant atheistic feelings rise to the surface and there is no doubt the 9/11 bombings have been a catalyst to the abundance of new literature available to us.

Gray comments, “For the first time in generations, scientists and philosophers, high-profile novelists and journalists are debating whether religion has a future.”

But he goes on to question the 'secular fundamentalists'’ principles and concludes they have got it wrong. Furthermore he believes it is becoming a religion in itself. Although neo-atheists like Dawkins and Hitchens believe that “the advance of religion will drive religion to the margins of human life” this is now more “an article of faith rather than a theory based on evidence.”

 Although I can do little justice to the neo-atheist argument in a single post, the neo-atheists view is crudely this: religion was fine when we didn’t know any better, but now we have science it no longer has a usefulness in our society. Furthermore it is dangerous and causes no end of the world’s problems. Science will make us a happy cohesive society, not religion. Time to move one.

So do they have a point and who does the moral compass fall into the hands of, if not religion?

Author Phillip Pullman has been reported to have said recently “humanity needs to evolve morally if it is to survive. We have to change and it will be very uncomfortable. But if we don’t the alternative will be worse.”

But who is going to get humanity to evolve morally? If you ignore the church and, of course, the State who will advise us of the way forward?

Pullman, like Dawkins and Hitchens, recognises that science has to offer a true alternative to religion, but where do they start?

In Pullman’s trilogy his young heroine Lyra Belacqua sets out to thwart the Magisterium – his metaphor for Christianity – because it looks to take away the freedom to choose our own course in life. Lyra believes this is what is most human in us. But as Gray rightly points out freewill was the creation of God in the first place. If Adam and Eve had not had freewill they would not have eaten from fruit from the forbidden tree. Even though he knows it would do them no good, he does not come across as the over protective parent, but allows them to exercise their own decision.

Pullman’s story is nothing more than a derivative of this Christian concept. This does not excuse for one moment the horrendous things done in the name of Christianity. And if there is one big fault with the church it has been foolishly acquiescent in times when it really needed to get its house in order and speak out.

Gray goes on to argue that neo-atheists enjoy the freedom to express views because Christianity expresses freedom at its philosophical best, which is at the foundation of a liberal society like ours. In short, it owes an awful lot to its Christian heritage.

Nietzsche recognised that to be an atheist and have liberal values was wrong as it still connected itself with Christianity and so subsequently condemned it partly for that reason.

So what kind of values can you have as an atheist?

How does it contribute to the betterment of society? These are important questions that John Gray tackles. His book is a ‘must read’ for all those taking this debate seriously and wanting to do it with integrity.

It is worth noting in closing that America has a secular constitution, but has not been able to throw out the concept of God in its society. Over 80% of Americans still believe in God and they have had a secular constitution in place for 200 years.

Therefore, I do not see the detachment of religion from an established position as being a particular threat, rather than offering up new opportunities. Such is the strength of a concept that offers transformation of life through the sacrifice of a single life.

Unfortunately for the anti-God squad the Easter story lives on and will continue to do so.

ASD

 

‘Doubting John Humphrys’ versus Militant Atheism

Welcome to a new week. And what better way to start it than a reference to the front page Sunday Times story regarding a YouGov report and Radio Four Today’s presenter John Humphry’s new book, In God We Doubt.

“NEARLY half the British think that religion is harmful, according to a poll carried out by YouGov. Yet more than half also believe in God “or something”.

If you are a Christian not fragile to being challenged by a reflective doubter then I commend this article and book to you. If you are an agnostic you will probably resonate with some of his insights.  If you are a neo-atheist you will undoubtedly seethe at some of his conclusions.

Although some religion rightly comes under a lot of scepticism, especially in some of its extreme outworkings of its faith, i.e Islamic fundamentalism, it is the neo-atheist cheerleaders which suffer the most from the radio presenter’s pen.

“Militant atheists seem to have enormous difficulty in understanding why so many people – many of them just as clever as they are – manage to live by their beliefs. Here’s what Dawkins told Laurie Taylor in New Humanist magazine: “I don’t know what it would mean to say that we live by faith in our daily life. There is, I suppose, a sense that we are sometimes too busy to reason everything out, but otherwise I don’t know what it means.”

It seems to me that he misses the point entirely. It’s not necessarily that people are too busy to reason things out. It’s more that they don’t want to. They want to believe. In spite of the terrible things that have been done in the name of God over the millennia, religious belief brings immeasurable comfort.”

The path of faith isn’t easy and it does seem to elude many, but It would be wrong of me to be defensive as doubt is often quoted as the cousin of faith.  There is also need to make a distinction between non-belief and disbelief. I doubted everything before I became a Christian. The process of coming to faith was hardly the Damascus Road experience for me or for many others I know.

The Anglican priest Rev Dr Giles Fraser who pops up from time to time in the Thought for the day slot of Radio Four’s Today’s programme has apparently called himself a 'failed atheist'.  He is often quite vocal for criticising sickly sweet Christianity, which fails to honestly address the hard questions in life.

Another failed atheist was CS Lewis, the famous Christian allegorical writer and Oxford Don. He set out to actively disprove the Christian faith and found its message too much to ignore. Beyond the Narnia stories, you might want to read Till We Have Faces and Surprised by Joy.

What I find interesting with some strong anti-Christian voices is that although they find it hard to believe the Christian message they nevertheless find it hard to leave alone.  Something grabs them that won't let go.If Dawkins and co find it so irrelevant and unreal, why keep up such a vociferous vitriolic attack?

Humphreys is right when, ultimately, he says Christianity isn’t so much about intellectualism, but love.  This is, perhaps, best conveyed though literature, poetry and music.   Not through intellectual rigour alone, which is at best cold, clinical and detached from what it is to be a relational being.

This has been the experience of believers for thousands of years.  Believer and non-believer alike, we try and make sense of the meaningless and unfathomable. The best way forward is with a huge dollop of humility and openness.  Then we might just learn a little more about this world – and ourselves – than we first bargained for. It might also lead onto a road to God.

I respect Humphrys for his honesty. I also respect him for not succumbing to the usual journalist approach which starts with the writer's preconception of what is a Christian and then works back to post-rationalise their view.

As a Christian we may continue to have doubts.  That's okay. It's what keeps us sharp and pressing into the heart of God. It stops us from being complacent. But to doubt and not be in the presence of God must be a toughy!

Does a book like this shake my faith?  Nah!  But I am glad it has made think. And for that I will be eternally grateful.

ASD

The Arrogance of New Atheism

I read a great article by Madeleine Bunting in last weekend’s Guardian. She spoke about how Richard Dawkins and others are fashionably trashing religion in their books, but often going too far in their excoriation to be taken seriously. Take Sam Harris’ two bests sellers: The End of Faith and Letter to a Christian Nation and Christopher Hitchens’ God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything. Both have risen from relative obscurity to make money from the neo-athesism bandwagon.  And we are told that many more are on the way.

Now it could be said many people will never actually read their books cover to cover.  They will just sit on a coffee table collecting dust.  Maybe.

From my experience, reading other blogs devoted to this subject, a lot of the disciples of Dawkins et al have been drawn in from their own disaffection with religion. In short, it’s payback time!

Personally, I am not too perturbed by the surge of interest in these kind of polemical academics. On the contrary, I am excited that they are getting all puffed up about religion.   As Oscar Wilde said, “The only thing worse about being talked about is not being talked about.  If religion was a dying phenomenon in the 21st century, surely the biggest insult you could make is to let it pass away in obscurity?  But, no, the arrogance of some academics gets the better of them. On short, science has got overtly political. And the university professors rather look like they are enjoying the attention.

The problem is that science is needed by religion. And vice versa, but maybe both sides need to grow up. As Anselm famously said, “Faith seeks understanding”. At least, thankfully, no one has mentioned Galileo and Pope Urban VIII yet. 

The danger of religious fundamentalism of course needs to be addressed. We do need to understand why someone walks onto a bus with a backpack full of explosives to kill innocent children who, seconds before, are laughing together and planning a football match after school. To us, it’s terrorism, but to the religious zealot, it’s freedom.

It is also far too simplistic to equate American fundamentalism with Islamic fundamentalism.  This is lazy thinking to my mind and not even worthy of a Third in a Comparative Religions Degree. The day I see a Christian suicide bomber walk onto a packed tube in London then, perhaps, I will revise my position.  That is not to say the increasingly spiritualised politics of America isn’t worrying and needs addressing.  Of course it does.  Education is required, but polarising each other’s positions to the point of ridicule is surely counter-productive. Whatever happened to deference in our Christian-based liberal democracy? Faith and Reason; faith and reason…

Sadly, I can’t find Madeleine Bunting’s article on Guardian Unlimited, but if you have any joy locating it, please let me know.

ASD