Category: Religion

On The Embarrassment Of Agreeing With The British Humanist Association

See this news report from the BBC:

BBC NEWS | Education | Churches push for school worship

Some church leaders want the Government to enforce the legal requirement in the UK for acts of collective worship in schools of a ‘broadly Christian character’. I am disturbed by their major claim for worship. Apparently it

“helps to equip young people to understand more about
themselves, foster a sense of the aesthetic and to cope with
life-changing moments.”

Since when was that Christian worship? This is such an anthropocentric (human-centred) definition. It is consumerist: what’s in it for me? There is nothing theocentric (God-centred) in these words at all.

Ironically the British Humanist Association said,

“A whole school can do many things together but, lacking
a shared religion, it is incoherent to believe that they can ‘worship’
together.”

They are onto the fact that there is something requiring coherence in true worship. As a Christian I would argue that it is found in the Trinity. But no, once more, those who speak on behalf of the Christian Church seem to have gone more for the ‘sales pitch’ than core truth.

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Towards A Theology Of Web 2.0: some brief notes

Here are some notes I’ve been working on for several days. I haven’t managed to polish the prose, but hopefully they might set people thinking. ‘Towards A Theology Of … ‘ might sound pretentious, and I recall a college friend taking the mickey with a paper entitled ‘Towards A Theology Of Football’, but I’m really just trying to say that these are provisional thoughts as part of an attempt to work from a conviction that God is interested in all of life, the Web included. So here goes:

There is so much around about the transition from Web 1.0 to Web 2.0. Web 1.0 was already somewhat postmodern because of GUIs and intuition, also ‘surfing’. But Web 2.0 represents an increasing postmodernisation. It goes from static websites to dynamic ones(rather like going back from a Greek mindset to a Hebrew one). It moves from reading what is provided (sermons – cf. my site) to interaction (which is very postmodern and can be consumerist). Note for example the emphasis on conversation (particularly in blogs with their comments and trackbacks – no wonder the emerging church ‘conversation’ favours not simply the web but web 2.0). Then there is collaboration (online apps – is this a feminising of the web and more so of the church, because it is contrary to competition? Although note that collaborative web apps are being introduced for reasons of empire and competition – Google v Microsoft, etc. So now you can word-process online and use spreadsheets together. Some vendors provide a whole suite of programs.)

So what kind of witness and evangelism is appropriate on the web? In Web 1.0 you listen to the proclamation but in Web 2.0 it must be dialogical. The Web Evangelism Bulletin has long been anti-church websites that are electronic notice sheets and has promoted the ‘bridge strategy’ where a Christian writes about his/her profession or hobby and mentions their faith somewhere in it. That itself can still be static, but if combined with the interactivity of, say, a blog that is well tagged, they may be onto something.

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The Flaming Lips And Atheism

The Flaming Lips, psychedelic rock band du jour, are known for their joyful embrace of atheism (see songs such as ‘Do You Realize??’ which jauntily celebrates death as the end of everything, for example). In the July 2006 (issue number 152) edition of Mojo magazine, Wayne Coyne of the band describes briefly where his attitude to religion began:

When I was 12 years olf my mother worked at a thrift store. And she took toys and clothes that no one wanted and she would take them over to the church. People from the neighbourhood would come into the church and they would thank God for these wonderful toys and clothes. My mom would be like, “You saw me bring them, you saw me bring them to the damn church! Don’t thank God! Thank me!” I suppose I’ve inherited that kind of attitude to religion.

The simplest and smallest of things and faith goes. A lack of appreciation for one woman’s acts of kindness and that’s that. Theologically, you could say the neighbourhood people were right to thank God: “all things come from you and of your own do we give you”, etc. It’s the same thing that Miroslav Volf was at pains to affirm in his book Free Of Charge, which I blogged about in Lent (particularly relevant to this discussion is chapter 1).

But does not purity of theological view divorced from love turn orthodoxy into heresy? I recall a theological student who did a placement with me leading a midweek study group on homosexuality. “Of course I gave them the biblical view,” he told me afterwards. I knew what he meant, and I too believe that the followers of Jesus should conduct sexual relationships solely within the lifelong covenant of marriage, which is between a man and a woman. But I still don’t think he gave them the full biblical view if he only talked about the rights and wrongs and didn’t begin from a point of affirming God’s love for all. Isn’t the most fundamental statement about God in the whole of Scripture that ‘God is love’? (That to me is where Calvinism makes its most fundamental error, in beginning from God’s sovereignty.)

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The Flaming Lips And Atheism

The Flaming Lips, psychedelic rock band du jour, are known for their joyful embrace of atheism (see songs such as ‘Do You Realize??’ which jauntily celebrates death as the end of everything, for example). In the July 2006 (issue number 152) edition of Mojo magazine, Wayne Coyne of the band describes briefly where his attitude to religion began:

When I was 12 years olf my mother worked at a thrift store. And she took toys and clothes that no one wanted and she would take them over to the church. People from the neighbourhood would come into the church and they would thank God for these wonderful toys and clothes. My mom would be like, “You saw me bring them, you saw me bring them to the damn church! Don’t thank God! Thank me!” I suppose I’ve inherited that kind of attitude to religion.

The simplest and smallest of things and faith goes. A lack of appreciation for one woman’s acts of kindness and that’s that. Theologically, you could say the neighbourhood people were right to thank God: “all things come from you and of your own do we give you”, etc. It’s the same thing that Miroslav Volf was at pains to affirm in his book Free Of Charge, which I blogged about in Lent (particularly relevant to this discussion is chapter 1).

But does not purity of theological view divorced from love turn orthodoxy into heresy? I recall a theological student who did a placement with me leading a midweek study group on homosexuality. “Of course I gave them the biblical view,” he told me afterwards. I knew what he meant, and I too believe that the followers of Jesus should conduct sexual relationships solely within the lifelong covenant of marriage, which is between a man and a woman. But I still don’t think he gave them the full biblical view if he only talked about the rights and wrongs and didn’t begin from a point of affirming God’s love for all. Isn’t the most fundamental statement about God in the whole of Scripture that ‘God is love’? (That to me is where Calvinism makes its most fundamental error, in beginning from God’s sovereignty.)

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Yet more eBible invitations

I went back to eBible today for the first time since holiday, to do a bit of research for Sunday’s sermon. Upon logging in I discovered I’ve been given a further three invitations to give away for participation in the private beta testing of this site. I’ll give them out on a first-come, first-served basis again. So if you want one you’ll have to be quick, given the way they went last time. Please keep an eye out on the blog for a message when they’ve all gone.

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