…after my recent time in India.

I’m not sure what the best order (trip>film or film>trip) would have been, but the experience certainly was reinforced by watching the film – which is, of course given its popularity/success, quite good.

Mark, despite his cerebral palsy induced disability, has done very well with what he has.  He advocates internationally on behalf of disabled persons, and sells chocolate bars on Broadway street in Newmarket, Auckland, to raise money to support his five World Vision sponsor children.  His father has just published a book called ‘The Chocolate Seller on Broadway and His Kids‘, which has been noticed in the media – and apparently had some large NZ names at the book-launch, which is great to hear.

It’s inspiring, and not a little humbling, to see someone with such passion.  I especially appreciated Mark and Chris’ sharing about how their faith has been challenged, sharpened and strengthened through dealing with disability.  Everyone (even supermodels/actors apparently) has physical things about them they wouldn’t mind changing (which are probably all-too-often determined by cultural standards of what a human should look like).  But what really matters is what we do with what we’ve got.

Two points:

1. The things created in days 4-6 (filling the spaces separated/formed in days 1-3) are as follows: sun, moon, stars, sea-creatures of all kinds, sky-creatures of all kinds, land-creatures and livestock, man and woman.  These same things – in the reverse order – are listed by Moses in Deuteronomy 4 as things not to make idols out of or in the likeness/image of.  “…Therefore watch yourselves very carefully, so that you do not become corrupt and make for yourselves an idol, an image of any shape, whether formed like a man or a woman, or like any animal on earth or any bird that flies in the air, or like any creature that moves along the ground or any fish in the waters below. And when you look up to the sky and see the sun, the moon and the stars—all the heavenly array—do not be enticed into bowing down to them and worshiping things the LORD your God has apportioned to all the nations under heaven.”  These are created things.  They are not to be worshiped as though they were the Creator.  This anti-idolatry sentiment is present in Genesis 1.  The surrounding cultures did make idols/gods out of each and every one of these things.
2. Curiously, all of the ‘filling’ activity is on days 4-6 – except for the vegetation/plant-life, which is, as it were, tacked on the end of day 3.  The land is allowed to produce plants and trees that bear fruit according to their kind.  We see a parallel here: the ‘fruit-bearing’ word at the end of the three days of ‘forming’ parallels the command to the male and female to ‘be fruitful and multiply’ at the end of the three days of ‘filling’.  The ‘fruitfulness’ theme continues on through Genesis, and is picked up again and again throughout the Bible (and is part of the inspiration for a really great blog!).  Here in Genesis 1, the forming and filling acts of God climax in fruitfulness, and set the stage for all subsequent fruit-bearing.  In the New Testament, believers are also formed and filled by God as a part of enacting their fruit-bearing as well.

• Someone a lot more biologically inclined than myself could (probably? if indeed such short-lived organisms exist?) give examples of fast-reproducing organisms (microbes, gnats, etc.?) whose life-spans are only a few hours, and thus would have died on the same day of their creation.
• According to ‘mature creation’ theory (creation created ‘mature’ – light already in transit from distant stars, trees with [very misleading!] annual rings only moments old, etc.), there would have been very, very ‘mature’-slash-about-to-die birdies and fishies created, some of which – conceivably – would have died on the same day of their creation.
• Also, unless not one, single, fish-eating bird dipped down and tasted of the delicious bounty of the shimmering little fishies below, at least some fish would have died on the same day of their creation.

Beyond conceivable doubt, even given a 24-hour day understanding of creation (with 6, successive acts of ’spontaneous creation’), there would have been physical death before the events of Genesis 3.

((note: I see no reason to doubt that the text of Genesis 1 was originally a poem/song expressing theological truths, as opposed to being a play-by-play, moment-by-moment, fact-by-fact account of the ‘how’ of creations’ origin.  Thus, the nit-picking-ly detailed exercise above ought to be unnecessary – but is merely noted in reference to those who insist that there could have been no death before the Fall.))

I could give a ‘what we got up to’ report of the work our team did (some still over – some still yet to go) on the new Freeset T-shirts building.  But we didn’t only go as labourers – we went to observe as well.  Kerry took us on a couple of ‘walks’ to see the areas around Freeset, and also we saw other bits of Kolkata as well.  I suppose I’m more inclined to reflect on what I observed and the thoughts it brought to mind – many of which will still tick over in my head for some time to come.

Kolkata is dirty (except for the clean bits) and smelly (except for the non-smelly bits).  They’ve got the latest technology (laptops, cellphones, etc.) but also way more poverty/beggars than many places (certainly developed/western places!).

I used to argue that people were happier in the 2/3 world (as opposed to ‘third’ world – 2/3 better reflects the balance of population and land mass).  To some extent, this may well be true.  But this doesn’t mean that many people wouldn’t choose a “1/3 world” lifestyle if they could.  I sometimes assumed they would just want to carry on as they are, but that’s not true.

Take drinking water, for example.  The water most of them drink carries disease.  They would drink clean water if they could (and thankfully, the community around Freeset will soon have access to safe drinking water – though the issue of how to ensure it doesn’t contribute to inequality – the powerful taking all the clean water, etc. – is an ongoing issue).

Or take the controversial (or not, or in different ways, depending on where you’re from, influences, cultural assumptions, etc.) example of prostitution.  The women are nearly universally pressured/forced/bullied/threatened/coerced into the trade by pimps, boyfriends or even husbands or family.  Their bodies are turned (by others) into a commodity to support needs of all kinds (and all levels of legitimacy).  These women would do something else if they could.  Matter of fact, show me any any 12 year old girl anywhere in the world who would choose (apart from manipulation or coercion) to sell her body to strangers.  Apparently, you can spot the new girls to the trade by observing the ones who aren’t smiling.

It is true that we cannot simply cut/paste our cultural sense of what is appropriate or not onto another culture.  But I’m convinced that there are real and true modes of existence for the world that are better or worse than others.  Some things are indeed merely cultural differences.  But other things we just ‘know’ are better or worse than others.  A lot of morality may well be grey, but not all of it.

On one of our walks, we stopped to play a game with some children – like 3-4.  In minutes, the whole street population (it seemed) had gathered to watch – including (I’d barely noticed) an older drunk man.  As we eventually moved on, a young man commenced giving the older man a hearty beating – young, angry fists connecting with elderly, weak skin/bone.  Kerry (who later told us that it would have been due to their seeing the drunk man as an ‘embarrassment’ to the community – esp. with foreigners present – time to make an example of him) quickly broke it up and gently-yet-firmly – with fluent Bangla – rebuked the younger man.

Was Kerry imposing his Western values onto them?  I think not.  I think some things aren’t as complicated as others may be.  I think they understood – and even respected – his actions.

The Hindu caste system was behind this and other inequalities we saw (and seeing the inequalities in India made me more aware of inequalities in so-called ‘egalitarian’ NZ…).  Widows in India lose their entire identity and worth (in the past, a practice called ’sati’ was common – but is now outlawed apparently – where widows would throw themselves onto the burning graves of their dead husbands).  Again, I don’t oppose this simply because it’s not American or Kiwi, but because I genuinely don’t believe it is right that a widow need be stripped of honour and dignity.  One truly amazing and inspiring woman, Mina, had just lost her husband, and even though she has turned to Christian faith, she is still struggling massively with feelings of un-worth and uselessness.

That’s probably as good a place to stop as any for this rambling, unstructured post.  I may post again on other things, and I apologise (sort of) for the philosophical/ethical bent to this so-called ‘report’ on my trip to India, but it’s just what came out as I typed.  Cheers.

Will the people defending Dawkins (a la ‘Must he hold a theology degree before he can critique it!?’) lend the same defense to the authors of this new work (‘Must the authors bother to interact with evolution as actually understood by evolutionists!?’)?

…but probably not this week.

Cheers

• I personally am not afraid of the campaign, and would argue that it is not offensive, and should therefore be allowed to run as any other non-offensive ad (I’ve met an atheist whose t-shirt read: ‘Militant atheist: there is no god-damn god, god-dammit’; which would, for me, be too offensive for a bus ad… and possibly for a publicly-worn t-shirt? Which raises some of the ethical questions below…).
• Perhaps those persons complaining about this (or any other) ad are just as entitled to do so as are the atheists who are complaining about the current decision of NZ Bus?
• Where do we draw the line as to what is a human-rights issue and what is not?  The idea of living in a society in which vandals, rapists and murderers are ‘discriminated’ against is surely less worrying than the idea of living in a society in which religious or anti-religious ads (in general) are unallowable due to a few people expressing offense?
• As someone responding to the interview this morning on Breakfast Show on TV1 implied (possibly/probably with a sarcastic example?), should we be shocked if NZ  Bus opted not to run an ad from a company named ’strip of meat’, complete with ’strip’-ping topless women?  Again, my view is that the atheist ad is infinitely less offensive that that example, but it does raise the question, no?
• I also can’t help but point out that without taking seriously (as having some ‘weight’ or ‘authority’) the goal (telos) of –for example– peaceful respectfulness toward neighbour (or similar), there is absolutely no reason to deny any racist, bigoted or discriminating ad campaigns (i.e. ‘Maori suck eggs!’ etc.).
• I’m still amiss as to how one can get a prescriptively passionate ‘ought’ (ethic) from a prescriptively indifferent ‘is’ (ontology).  I.e. – “At bottom, there is no meaning in the universe, but this is an outrage!!!  And my outrage is more justified than the outrage of those who have the exact opposite view!!!”
• I reckon NZ bus should not be enslaved to a dictate to allow every single ad campaign to run, though I also don’t think they should be ‘free’ to discriminate against groups.

He ends the Conclusion with this:

We must be careful not to fall into intellectual self-satisfaction, into a kind of triumphalism of erudite and advanced ‘new’ visions of Christianity.  The only thing that is really new is to accept day by day the gift of the Spirit, who makes us love – in our concrete options to build a true human fellowship, in our historical initiatives to subvert an order of injustice – with the fullness with which Christ loved us.  To paraphrase a well-known text of Pascal, we can say that all the political theologies, the theologies of hope, of revolution, and of liberation, are not worth one act of genuine solidarity with exploited social classes.  They are not worth one act of faith, love, and hope, committed – in one way or another – in active participation to liberate humankind from everything that dehumanizes it and prevents it from living according to the will of the Father. (p.174)