We must have patience regarding the amount we will ever be able to know about a given topic.  Whether your ‘-ology’ is of ‘bios’, ‘theos’, or ‘cosmos’, it’s essential to remember that there will always be more questions.  For some, this is an enquiry-stopper.  ”Heck, if we can’t know . . . → Read More: patience…]]> With any discipline or line of enquiry, patience is a virtue.

We must have patience regarding the amount we will ever be able to know about a given topic.  Whether your ‘-ology’ is of ‘bios’, ‘theos’, or ‘cosmos’, it’s essential to remember that there will always be more questions.  For some, this is an enquiry-stopper.  ”Heck, if we can’t know it all, why bother?”  For myself, however, this is invigorating!  More to learn!  More to think about!  More to consider!  Let’s get to it!

Westporo Baptist Church (the infamous “god hates fags” church) has no official (or unofficial?) ties to ANY denomination or other church(s).  There are untold thousands of less-controversial churches and preachers, which nonetheless stray off into variously worrying forms of fundamentalism.

For these kinds of . . . → Read More: “organised religion”]]> When people rant about “organised religion” they may or may not know what they are dissing.

Westporo Baptist Church (the infamous “god hates fags” church) has no official (or unofficial?) ties to ANY denomination or other church(s).  There are untold thousands of less-controversial churches and preachers, which nonetheless stray off into variously worrying forms of fundamentalism.

For these kinds of churches & pastors, ‘freedom of conscience’ and ‘the priesthood of the believer’ (both of which I hold to firmly), are held to at the expense of such things as accountability or governing structure (congregational or denominational).  Church “hierarchy”, like any kind of structure, can be wise or foolishly designed and implemented.

While I could never say that a pastor must have a degree to be qualified, the slogan “God doesn’t call the qualified, he qualifies the called” betrays not a little naivety.  It’s not about insisting that a pastor must have a masters degree or anything, but at the very least, they should be accountable to someone other than themselves.

The Baptist Union of NZ does not require any particular degree, but in order to maintain your denominational registration, you must fulfill the (very flexible and practical) requirements within a “Ministry Development Agreement”.  I personally think (and I should, as a registered Baptist pastor, huh!?) this is a wise middle ground between a very dangerous brand of ‘independence’ (or should we call it anti-dependence?) on the one hand, and very constrictive forms of church ‘accountability’ (control!).

Erich Fromm is known in large part for his contrast between the ‘being’ and ‘having’ modes of existence, as expressed in his 1976 book (partial preview here), To Have or To Be?  . . . → Read More: beings that have – or havers that are had]]> (The excellent documentary that got my brain going down this – excellent or not so excellent – train of thought is ‘Consumed: Inside the Belly of the Beast‘)¹

Erich Fromm is known in large part for his contrast between the ‘being’ and ‘having’ modes of existence, as expressed in his 1976 book (partial preview here), To Have or To Be?  The basic idea is that humans, having estranged ourselves from our environment or the other(s), try to restore this relationship either by way of some kind of dominating possession (‘having’) of the other, or by way of relating to or existing (‘being’) with the other.

The speculative thought I wanted to explore via blogging (one of blogging’s best uses) is thus: Only ‘beings’ can actually ‘have’; and ‘havers’ are actually ‘had’ by the things they think they ‘have’.

The haver is defined by the act of possession of the other, and is thus enslaved to his desire to have this other.  The being, however, is defined by, not possession, but relationship to other (and self), and is thus free of needing to have the other.

It is worth pausing and considering the many things we can desire to possess – the many things which can thus begin to possess us.  Status.  Wealth.  Comfort.  Knowledge.  Satisfaction.  Power.  Relationships.  Affection.  I reckon all of these things are good things which are nonetheless distorted when we seek to found our being upon having them.  i.e. “I am one who has knowledge, friends, wealth, etc.”

I believe the ultimate Being is the Creator, whose ontological (Gk. ontos = being/existence) status is wholly distinct from, and transcendent of, our world.  The Creator did not need to have a creation², but rather simply is a creative Being, and thus a) relates to creation as being the Creator, and b) therefore truly has it.

Thus, we most reflect this ultimate Being when our being is grounded by relationship to the other, rather than established by possession of the other.

1. And no, I’m not going to pretend I didn’t notice the parallel language to John the Seer in chapters 17-18 of his Apocalypse!
2. which would make the Creator contingent upon the creation!!

The juxtaposition is too profound to ignore.  On the one . . . → Read More: night]]> I’m probably the only worship song leaders who, during a Christmas day worship service, introduced the song “O Holy Night” by way of a reference to the book “Night” by Elie Wiesel, which recounts his experiences in the death camps Auschwitz (which I’ve visited and will never forget) and Buchenwald.

The juxtaposition is too profound to ignore.  On the one hand, one of the best (if not the best) Christmas carols, singing about that great night when the Light of the World entered our world through the womb of a young woman.  On the other, one of the most hideously horrific glimpses into one of the worst (if not the worst) seasons in human history, when darkness in its blackest hue was manifest through human indifference, racism and genocidal hatred.  Two very different nights indeed.

For me, this serves as a necessary and unnerving reminder of yet another aspect of the doctrine (and more so the Event!) of the Incarnation.  Divinity did not only ‘come near’ to our world, it entered and united to it.  God did not unite to the best and most beautiful bits of creation, but to all of it, warts and all.  The Light of the World descended into the darkest pitch.  For the Early Church Fathers who debated vigorously how to understand the dual nature of Christ, he must be fully divine in order to save us, and fully human in order to effect the salvation.  The slogan they developed was, “What is not assumed cannot be saved.”  Thus, Christ fully descended into humanity.

It occurs to me that there is no place on earth, no hospice, no church, no home, no garden, that is so pure and righteous that evil does not touch it with its corrupting finger at least in part.  And conversely, there is no place on earth, no brothel, no wall street, no hard drive, and yes, no death camp, that is so stained and putrid that good does not scatter at least some small dots of light within it.

Reading “Night” was hard going, to be sure.  One cannot have a beating heart and not grimace at times.  But I was struck by the faint glimmers of light within such darkness.  The SS soldier who was kinder than the rest.  The fellow prisoners who sacrificed their own food, safety and lives for the sake of others.  The boy who played his violin for all he was worth in a room full of frozen, dying bodies.

There are few more faith-challenging realities than suffering on this scale.  For Elie Wiesel, this Night murdered his God and his faith forever.  One must not glibly respond with easy theological justifications, however sound they may be.  But suffice to say, for me, among other things, these little dots of light are whispers of hope, audible for those who listen for them among the cacophony of white (and yet black) noise which can be so loud at times.  In Christ, God is with us, crying with us, praying with us, shivering with us, sweating, bleeding, and yes, dying with us.

Upon graduation in March, I will officially have three qualifications, one related to building houses, and two . . . → Read More: finished]]> Well, it’s been a good little while since I’ve posted, because I’ve been finishing my undergrad degree  I’ve turned in my last essay just this Sunday, which was one of two larger (6,000 word) research projects.  I attach links to the PDFs below.

Upon graduation in March, I will officially have three qualifications, one related to building houses, and two related to ‘building up’ people

AAS (Associate of Applied Science: Building Materials Merchandising)
DipPL (Diploma of Pastoral Leadership)
BappTheol (Bachelor of Applied Theology)

I’m not sure what my posting regularity or content will be like.  Time will tell.  But anyway, here are those PDFs.

• “orientation –disorientation –reorientation”(PDF) a thematic integrative research project on homosexuality –Myk Habets, supervisor
• “alternative currency: An Economic Contrast of the Harlot & Bride in John’s Apocalypse & Implications for Alternative Ecclesiology in Consumptive Culture”(PDF) theological research paper –Andrew Picard, supervisor

in other words…

you’re never so good that you’re beyond the influence of evil and… you’re never so bad that you’re beyond the reach of God.

Because, there is more than one way to be omnipotent.

By way of analogy, take my non-omnipotence… my mere potency.  I possess the ‘ability’, or ‘power’ or ‘potency’ to do this or that thing.  I am, within the laws of physics, . . . → Read More: lamb power]]> I’ve long held the view that God doesn’t always get what God wants/wills/desires.  It seems fundamentally basic to me.

Because, there is more than one way to be omnipotent.

By way of analogy, take my non-omnipotence… my mere potency.  I possess the ‘ability’, or ‘power’ or ‘potency’ to do this or that thing.  I am, within the laws of physics, I suppose, free to do what I like.  In parenting Thomas, I have the power to be harsh or lax, smothering or distant, coercive or cold, forceful or far-off (or hopefully somewhere in-between).

If we take God’s existence (or ‘super-Existence’ or some word we don’t have, etc.) as a given, the possible extremes for God’s mode of interaction with the world are a kind of indifferent and distant deism (like a cold, careless father), or a manipulative, coercive dictator (like a harsh, smothering mother).

The biblical story develops.  Sometimes God seems to be distant, and sometimes God seems in intervene in ways that are quite sudden and forceful.  But as time and the story unfolds, the picture of God develops.  And this development is (as we’d expect – and like unto the development of, for example, science) characterised by both continuity and discontinuity.  But at any rate, God is never perfectly known – not yet anyway (1 Cor. 13:9).

But what does happen is that the New Testament authors are convinced that in Jesus of Nazareth, they have seen God in a way that is truly an ‘unveiling’.  The author of Hebrews contrasts the former God-speech from prophets and such like (Hebrews 1:1-2), with the recent unveiling of the ‘express image’ of God’s person (v3).  The book of Revelation could be called literally ‘the unveiling/uncovering of Jesus Christ’.

One of the most striking, unintuitive and ‘you’d-have-never-guessed-God-would-be-like-this’ aspects of the revelation of God in Jesus is that God’s omnipotence is the kind of omnipotence that is best pictured by a bloodied animal.  A lamb. On a throne.

This God is neither distant, nor a dictator.  This God suffers with us, and conquers the sin and evil that has literally ruined the world.  This God’s omnipotence is best described as lamb power.

A: One thing we know about the period is that, from a Graeco-Roman perspective, bodily life after death would have been mocked1 and undesirable2.  This is why the Gospel (to which the Resurrection of Jesus is an essential and . . . → Read More: on jesus’ quiet resurrection]]> Q: Why does no Roman historian mention Jesus’ resurrection!?  Surely if something so extraordinary happened, they would have written about it!?

A: One thing we know about the period is that, from a Graeco-Roman perspective, bodily life after death would have been mocked¹ and undesirable².  This is why the Gospel (to which the Resurrection of Jesus is an essential and central) was “foolishness to the Greeks” (1 Corinthians 1).  Also, they wouldn’t have had much concern over what happened in Jerusalem, that comparatively small city which was so significant to those of that Jewish religion which they tolerated so mercifully.  A typical first-century mocking response to the announcement of Jesus’ resurrection might be something like: “Oh really… then why does all the power, authority, glory and riches still lie with Caesar in Rome?  Silly Jew…”

1. i.e. the mixed response to Paul’s preaching of resurrection (Acts 17).
2. for example, see Plutarch on desirable mode of post-mortem departure “Yes, it [the soul] comes from them, and to them it returns, not with its body, but only when it is most completely separated and set free from the body, and becomes altogether pure, fleshless, and undefiled. For ‘a dry soul is best,’ according to Heracleitus, and it flies from the body as lightning flashes from a cloud. But the soul which is contaminated with body, and surfeited with body, like a damp and heavy exhalation, is slow to release itself and slow to rise towards its source.” [source]