Oh Joy to the World

For Christ is Born

The Demise of Theology

I've recently been really thinking about whether theology as a field of study has any more place within the contemporary church, and felt this this comment by Webster, in Barth (2000) hit the nail on the head:

" Barth worked in a religious culture in which - possibly for the last time in Protestant history - sophisticated theological ideas were accorded great prestige, even when they were repudiated. The institution and forms of the Christian life which nurtured such a massive project as the Church Dogmatics scarcely exist, or exist only in somewhat embattled forms"

Looking around me, I can't help but feel the same way. The modern church is characterised by an almost anti-intellectualism, where proper thought and reflection is marginalised in preference for "life application".

We no longer seek to sharpen our understanding of the faith, making sure that proper action is guided by proper thought. Instead, so many approach the Christian faith as if it were some manual for life, giving point by point direction on how to do this or that. Whilst I cannot deny the need for practical theology, I cannot help feeling that we have, in doing so, "tamed" the Word of God, thinking that it can be bent to our own purposes, limited by our needs.

(For those wondering, the Church Dogmatics is a massive multivolume work by the theologian Karl Barth, who is regarded as one of the finest theologians of the 20th Century, in the company of Calvin and Augustine. This work has shaped alot of modern theological reflection, particularly Christology)

LoL time: The Porpoise Driven Life

Keep a lookout for tongue in cheek comments - like "ask Jesus into your heart again".

Just looking around

I just came across a reference to this church: http://www.docklandschurch.org.au/. Basically - it's an Anglican Church that was started up in docklands a few years ago, with a membership of 12. Now they currently have a membership of over 200 - not bad I reckon.

I know that we shouldn't compare ourselves with others, yadda yadda, but I think the contrast between our City Light Methodist Church and the Docklands Anglican Church is too striking to ignore.

You see, we have here two churches, situated literally next to each other. They both start out small, and are both part of very similar traditions (the Methodists are offshoots of the Anglicans).

Yet, over time, both have taken very different courses. Our church at the moment is still struggling with membership, funding, pastoral leadership, organisation, etc. Our brothers/sisters next to us, however, seem to be chugging along at a nice and healthy pace. Why? Perhaps this has something to do with the fact that they're really working with the Docklands communities, and targeting their activities as such ( they have "Sex in the City" Seminars and hold Bible Studies in local pubs - need I say more ?).

Now, I don't believe that growth is necessarily the definitive sign of the health of a church, but with the church leadership mulling over how to grow our church, I don't think we can ignore and shut ourselves off from what's going on around us. In fact - sometimes looking at others leads us to reflect long and hard on ourselves. Perhaps this is something we need to do a bit more :P

389 years

Just as a followup from my previous post, have a look at this:

http://www.wallstats.com/blog/389-years-ago/

Change isn't coming - it's already happened.

I'm sure everyone's heard about the recent Obama win in the US elections. Like many, I'll reserve judgement about how much change he'll really bring about - some things can only be seen when the rubber hits the road, so to speak. What I am excited about, however, is the fundamental change in society we are seeing.

I think it's lost on many of us as to how AMAZING an African-American becoming president is.

Being a hobbyist photographer, I think a picture speaks a thousand words. This photo was taken by Lawrence Beitler in 1930, and shows a racist mob taking two black men from a local jail and hanging them. This was not a group of fringe fanatics - such a scene was not really considered outrageous back then. And mind you - this was less than 80 years ago in the USA. Many of us would still have relatives from that period who are still alive!

Up to the 1960s, black people had limited rights to vote. (especially the women) In a well documented case, Amelia Boynton, a black woman, tried to register to vote during the elections as a protest against her lack of voting rights. For this, she was arrested and thrown into jail.

It took a few more years for the Voting Rights Act to be passed, enabling blacks to once again have voting rights. Even then, the racist attitudes and hatred were still deeply embedded in society (for example, blacks were still not allowed to use PUBLIC toilets). Again remember: this was barely 50 years ago (my parents grew up in this era!).

So please excuse me for getting excited about the fact that USA has voted in an African American president by democratic vote. I find it amazing that in the relatively short span of 50-80years, we have gone from lynching the blacks to voting one of them into the White House. And its not just because people hate the Republicans - surveys and statistics have shown repeatedly that there was actually EXCITEMENT about the prospect of having Obama as president (as compared to having the Republicans out). Heck, the sheer size of Obama's rallies is a giveaway as to how enthusiastic the crowds were about him.

At this point, I'll just make a final comment about eschatology. Last week we had a sermon about how the world is going to pieces and is getting worse and worse. No offense to anyone, but I simply cannot and will not agree with such a pessimistic, dispensationalist view of human history. I don't know about you, but I would rather live in the world today, than in a world completely ruled by racism, hatred, greed and injustice(not that those things aren't around anymore!). The very fact that we see these stalwarts of human sin being penetrated and broken down, is a testimony to the fact that by God's grace made available through the transforming work on the Cross, the world can change for the better.

Tram tracking

I took this on the way to prayer meet. I just love the way the sun filters through the trees and bounces off the tracks.

Public ethics - a messy business

I've just completed a 3 day course on HIV prevention amongst sex workers, IV drug users, and men who have sex with men - and it's given me a lot to think about - in particular on the issue of legislation.

Let's take, for example, IV drug use. No government would be "proud" of having IV drug users around, and it is universally regarded as an undesirable practice. However, evidence has demonstrated complete prohibition of IV drug use doesn't really work that well, and has the downstream effects of causing the social marginalization and isolation that leads to high -risk behavioral patterns in that population. Services that would actually help these drug users cannot function effectively, as their target population is essentially underground, scattered, and fragmented.

On the other hand, by legalizing drug use, as in Victoria, we give organisations the opportunities to gather and target this particular population, providing ready access to support programmes and services that not only minimise the harm of IV drug use, but also facilatate their entry into rehabilitation programmes.

This approach presupposes a particular interaction between LAW and MORALITY. It suggests that the legal acceptance of a particular behavior does not necessary correlate with a moral acceptance of that same behavior. The corollary of that is that our moral convictions does not necessarily need translate into a corresponding legal stance on the issue.

This, obviously, flies in the face of what so many of us assume about the nature of legislation, and the role of our Christian values in the interaction with greater society. It did for me, and has now led me to rethink and reflect on my own ethical system, and how a public health physician (an area I'm working towards) engages in policy formation that affects an entire non-Christian community. SHOULD the law reflect and ENFORCE morality by force? And on what basis can we actually enforce a SPECIFIC brand of morality - religious or not (eg: why don't we take pedophilia off the criminal code)?

These are difficult issues, issues that have been around since the Church started getting involved in Roman politics. But they are also crucial issues worth reflecting on. I'll post more as I sort out my thoughts ;)

Any "objective" historians out there?

I'm currently working on a presentation on the 19th Century Cane Ridge revival in North America, in the form of a "role play". I chose to write as a skeptical young journalist, more interested in trashing the Christian faith than anything else. Here's a snippet:

Even the much touted Bible, the source of all Christian "revelation", is really full of sin, immorality, evil and plain silliness. If we read it uninfluenced by the holy banter from the pulpit, we will surely agree with Thomas Paine that “it is more consistent that we call [the bible] the word of a demon than the word of God".

It's really quite interesting to be writing from the other side of the fence. I think it really illustrates Cairn's discussion on the nature of history - that there are scientific (factual) elements, philosophical (interpretative) elements, and artistic (presentation) elements. In this case, I had to report on the factual events of the Cane Ridge revival, interpreting them as a skeptic, and present them in a journalistic format (I fail at the last, I reckon).

It's a useful reflection on the nature of all forms of reporting - that there will always be a subjective, interpretative element to things we say and do. It is much better, I propose, to recognise our inherent biasness and account for them, than to pretend that we are capable of "objective" thought, free from the influence of the world in which we live.

Unhealthy debt

I'm sure the majority of us have heard something about the Wall Street crash, with the closure (and near bankcruptcy) of several major US banks and insurance companies (eg: AIG, or AIA for those from SG). If you haven't, here's a 30 second summary: basically, US banks and companies were using debt to create more debt. Kind of like borrowing money from 1 person to buy something from another person - just on a global, massive financial scale. Now the bubble has burst, and all the bad debt has caught up with these institutions - and overnight, people with investments/savings with these institutions have seen their life savings disappear. People stop buying, US stops importing, and other countries stop exporting - and the economy grinds to a halt (I know the economists will tear me up for this oversimplification!).

But why bother with this? Those of us who haven't been taking risks with investments aren't affected, right? Even more so for those of us in the field of health care - we'll always have jobs, so as long as we don't overspend and make risky investments, we don't need to bother, right?

Wrong.

The WHO definition of health is as follows : "health is a state of complete physical, mental and social [and spiritual!] wellbeing, and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity" The corollary of that definition is that "anything that affects physical, mental and social [and spiritual] wellbeing affects health".

So what?

As health workers in a wide variety of capacities, we have to recognise that the issues we deal with are not entities existing in a vacuum that appear to the beat of some biostatistical value, but are often presentations of wide socio-economic issues.

In the case of the recent Wall Street meltdown, we have to stop ourselves from compartmentalising it into an "economic issue" - instead, we have to recognise that this will, in the great interconnectedness of society, eventually translate into health issues. The 1978 declaration of Alma Ata states: "Economic and social development, based on a New International Economic Order, is of basic importance to the fullest attainment of health for all".

The "illnesses" seen in the market place and society will more often than not translate into the "illnesses" seen in the consultation room, the pharmacy, the counselling rooms and the dental clinics. With a recession hitting the streets and people losing their savings and financial security, it would be not unexpected to see changes in the burden of diseases within society. We would be looking at remergence of infectious diseases as people begin moving to more cramped accomodations with poorer sanitation. There may be rising rates of depression, and possibly alcohol abuse and substance abuse (with relevant medical consequences) as a means of emotional anesthesia. Financial stressors could lead to relationship breakdown and domestic violence, with consequences for the long term health outcomes for members of those families. Eating a healthy and balanced diet may be replaced by settling for whatever was on special on the supermarket, more often than not something less than ideal, nutrition wise. A global recession is more than an "economic issue" - it is fairly and truly a health issue as well.

As health workers - doctor, nurse, dentist, pastor, phamacist, counsellor, physiotherapist, dietician, OT, etc - we have been tasked by God to engage with and contribute to the health of populations. It is only by looking beyond our textbooks and our own working space, to engage with the emerging challenges to the health of the people, that we can truly fulfill the task God has laid before us.

Why we focus on Christ Crucified

A recent essay I'm doing concerns the centrality of Calvary in Christian Evagelicalism - how we often associate the 'saving work' of Christ with his death. It was very interesting to attempt to chart the historical development of our current emphasis on the death (and resurrection) of Christ.

This focus on the can be traced back to the patristic theology of the western Church, in particular that of Augustine. Augustine emphasized that the righteousness of Christ was required in response to the guilt of human sin. In his case, the salvation effected by Christ was primarily one of legal significance, in which the recipient of grace was freed from jurisdiction. This theme was picked up again by Anselm’s Cur Deus homo argument, in which he argued that human sin caused an offense to God's honor, and that this required a satisfication of God only made possible through Christ's death.

However, the modern Evangelical emphasis on the soteriological value of Christ death, was probably cemeted by the reformer John Calvin, as he further developed Anselm’s argument into the Penal Substitution theory. Here, Jesus at his death is seen to be taking the punishment for our sin upon himself, in a substitutive manner. Since then, it would appear that this idea has been central to understanding Christian salvation within Evangelicalism (some even saying that the Penal Substitution theory was the "lens" by which all models of salvation are understood!).

Addiction ;)

The Old "New Faith"

http://www.theage.com.au/national/new-faith-throws-out-the-ten-commandments-20080915-4h3d.html?page=1

What gets me isn't that someone is making these claims. After all, we've seen such claims since the days of Marcion (c. 110AD). Instead, its the fact that people are standing up, claiming to be Christians, and rejecting everything that defines a Christian. Kind of like someone calling themself an atheist and then proclaiming that God exists. (Plus it's a sad statement on the current state of the Uniting Church.)

The Paradox of Modernity

‘A puzzling paradox confronts observers of modern society. We are witnesses to a dramatic expansion of market-based economies whose capacity for wealth generation is awesome in comparison to both the distant and the recent past. At the same time, there is a growing perception of substantial threats to the health and well-being of today's children and youth in the very societies that benefit most from this abundance.’ (Keating and Hertzman, 1999)

Fascinating - we have always assumed "richer = better (health indicator wise)". To some degree that seems to be true, but we are now seeing rich societies getting richer, while their "well-being indicators" (in areas such as mental, physical and social health) either stabilise or drop. It appears that the consumerisation, capitalisation, globalisation, post-modernisation, whatever-nisation of our society is taking its toll in ways we never expected.

That leaves a challenge for all of us involved in God's global mission - those of us ministering in these contexts have to develop a new model of health and well-being, with which we engage the modern (or post-modern) epidemics. Just as we cannot ignore the diseases of the developing world, we cannot ignore the diseases of the modern world.

Back to life

OK, after 1 year of a dead blog, I've decided to resurrect resuscitate it.

So much stuff in my head that I need somewhere to spew it all out!