seethrough

a friend of mine recently read a book by Richard Dawkins - The God Delusion - which has unsettled her. i think (she can correct me if i’m presenting her wrongly) it’s a good unsettledness but nevertheless, an unsettledness which is usually challenging.Dawkins is “anti-theist” - he’s not just a non-believer - he’s opposed to religion. I haven’t read the book but from various reviews and articles I gather that he includes an Appendix for those “needing support in escaping religion”. I think it’s enough to say he has an agenda. just as the Bible and other “authoritative” texts will be scrutinised for signs of personal and societal prejudices presented as “from God”, so Dawkins work - if it is to offer itself as a help to those “imprisoned in religion” - will surely be treated with the same scrutiny.

But I think the source of the unsettledness for my friend is that Dawkins makes such a strong and convincing argument for the Theory of Evolution . Christians have taken the question of “the Source of things” so for granted that this presentation of how things came to be seriously challenges old paradigms and begs the question - is there a place for faith in God in a Reality shaped by Evolutionary Progress.

so is there? it’s a challenging question! I hope to speak with my friend again and will report how she’s living with the question. but one thing that is becoming clear to me is that faith in God shouldn’t require a rejection of scientific knowledge. If we have placed our faith in something that is believed (by reasonably tested and commonly accepted scientific opinion) to be false - then we should consider the real possibility that we placed our faith in something that was not reliable (sure?) enough to be termed “God”… the faithful person (i would like to suggest the biblically faithful person) can pursue the questions of science (observation and rational inquiry) without fear of ultimately losing Faith. but - i suspect - we must expect some deep challenges to old taken-for-granted “knowledges” that prove to be no longer helpful.

i recently was challenged by a comment made by Rob Bell in a talk i have on cd - he said (something like) “if someone is searching for truth don’t stop them - even if they are searching in weird places. If they keep digging, at some point they are going to reach bed-rock, and then they’ll know they truth”. and as scripture says - the truth will set you free. He is also quoted as saying that “I affirm the truth anywhere in any religious system, in any world-view. If it’s true, it belongs to God.” [ref]

if it’s true - it belongs to God. yeah!

yesterday elaine’s dad was caught by a veld fire and badly burned. at present he is “stable” in a hospital in Bethlehem. he may be moved to Joburg this morning. the outlook is very bleak. he has sustained 60% burns and quite severe internal injury. it will be a miracle if he survives this ordeal.

elaine and cate have just boarded a plane to joburg and will be with him by mid-morning.

henry was alone on the farm in Van Reenen when he was caught by the fire, but we have no clarity as yet about what happened. fortunately someone found him and a neighbour took him to the hospital.

my father-in-law is an extraordinary man. he is a strong and determined man who has had to work extremely hard from humble beginnings in his life. He is a courageous man and i pray today that his courage and tenacity will pull him through the perilous next few days…

a few weeks go I wrote about “another story” - referring to a rediscovery of the old story of biblical faith, that has been sadly domesticated and diminished.

I gave 5 pointers as to what I think will help us rediscover the other story that has been lost. One of the things I suggested was this:

surely it must work out a new motivation for Faith. If we aren’t following Jesus to “avoid hell and earn our ticket into heaven”, what will be our primary reason for following?

Let me expand a little on what I mean by this…

Consider that favourite old verse of bible-believers… John 3:16 - “For God so loved the World…” The World!!! There it is in black-and-white -right under our noses. The Gospel of Sin-management (Dallas Willard, which reduces the Gospel into the forgiveness of sins so that you can gain access into heaven) fails to acknowledge the broad and all-encompassing goals of biblical salvation. Salvation can’t just be about my sins being forgiven! Besides it being contrary to the broad vision of scriptural prophecy (consider Isaiah’s vision of the Lion lying down with the Lamb… and sickles and ploughshares…) - it fails the simple test of selfishness: it’s just downright self-centred to tell God’s story of salvation in terms of the forgiveness or MY sins.

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I can’t remember ever being asked to leave a church. Mostly I was the good kid earning the prize for 100 attendances… so it was quite a surprise to be bumped off a blog.

Ok, maybe I wasn’t exactly bumped! I didn’t get banned, but the discussion thread I was commenting (participating/arguing) on was cancelled by the blog-owner…

Recently I have been enjoying a fairly engaging conversation with Nate on Adam’s blog. Adam posted a reflection on developments in a ministry called “Exodus” in the UK. Nate and I (and Meghan for a while) got into an interesting conversation about different ways to approach ethical questions - most notably, whether people of faith are called to be “boundary-watchers” (Nate’s term).

Perhaps reading what someone has written makes a their tone sound more aggressive than it’s meant to be, but I thought the tone of the conversation was assertive but respectful. More interesting to me is that although Nate and I disagreed about some stuff that I feel strongly about, after visiting his own blog, I reckon we probably have more in common than we disagree on. My sense is that our differences are worth talking through - we were on the road to finding each other… (I thought!)

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transparency can be scary!

(this “venture in honesty” could really be used to hurt me!!!)

a group of colleagues recently sent out a letter which begins like this:

in these days of moral and spiritual uncertainty the Church must give clear direction to her people, not least in the area of sexual morality.

while i commend them for their sincere concern for the witness of our church, i find their assumptions difficult to accept.

one of the total misunderstandings (or misrepresentations) of an “inclusive” position with regard to same-sex relationships and the church, is the “so you’re saying anything goes” argument. besides being a logical fallacy (see http://www.fallacyfiles.org/slipslop.html), it also underestimates (or is disrespectful of ) the strong biblical and ethical basis for the position that supports full acceptance of people in same-sex relationship within the life of the Christian community.

on what basis do I support people in same-sex relationships and desire that they be fully embraced by the Christian Community?

1. the story of God relating with people (what biblical scholars call “salvation history”) which is recorded in scripture is an unfolding story of grace and mercy.
the whole of scripture moves from limited experiences and expressions of grace to more and more wide and embracing expressions and experiences of grace…

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