Ask me anything

A friend at church was wearing a t-shirt from a CU Freshers Fair campaign which had the slogan 'I'm a Christian, ask me anything' in bold capital white letters across the middle of the shirt. My question was "why are you so arrogant?"

These campaigns (like the 'I agree with Greg' OICCU one) seem to do more harm than good, making people of faith out to look thoughtless and arrogant.

Capitalism

I've been haunted by an image I saw on the BBC news yesterday. The report was on the drought and food shortages in northern Uganda. The cameras showed a mother feeding her children pieces of dried raw goat skin which they were chewing on because they were so hungry.

This is a f*$"ing disgrace.

How can we live in a such a divided, unequal world. My immediate reaction was that this kind of atrocity is the result of western capitalism. Certainly pure 'free market' capitalism is not serving the desperate needs of the bottom billion of this world. But are these anti-capitalist feelings justified?

Capitalism will be said to be the most effective way to lift people out of poverty through development from outside investment (although the bottom billion still struggle). I'm not sure about the socialist track record on international development?

What is a different vision? I don't know how to solve this (rarely mentioned) global crisis. However, I'm left feeling less inclined to sound neutral about Capitalism as the best of a bad bunch for the world (I still maintain that Christians motivated by love should be socialist). Capitalism may be the best of a bad bunch but that doesn't mean it's not negative. It's appalling that there is such inequality in the world. Unregulated Capitalism promotes this inequality (i.e. by the unlevel playing field of free market economics) and so it should be REGULATED for the negative system that it is.

God's Kingdom utopia

Just had an interesting chat with a friend from college about whether socialism is the right attitude towards wealth/equality and possessions for the Christian community. I would argue that where socialism has failed elsewhere it is because it lacks a proper motivation and so we see, for example, communism where socialism must be enforced by social coercion of a powerful state. The Christian community, however should be motivated by love and by the example of Jesus and the early church to embody a community that shares with all as they have need and doesn't consider possessions as private property.

Our discussion developed as we considered the Utopian ideal which is a characteristic of Marxism. A current hot topic in theology seems to be an emphasis on the resurrection of all things (thanks to N.T. Wright et al). This idea results in a call to value the present material reality that is to be resurrected and not destroyed and also calls us to seek to build God's Kingdom on earth today, since this foreshadow will be taken up into the new earth.

It strikes me that in a theology of building God's Kingdom on earth today we have a call towards a utopian ideal that is to be brought into being through a struggle against the forces (could we say principalities and powers) and social structures of today. In the prayer that Jesus taught his disciples to say we are to pray that God's will would be done and that His kingdom would come on earth as it is in heaven - is this too a call for a utopian ideal in the remaking of society?

Authentic Christianity looks more and more socialist to me!

Historical Old Testament

We have just had an interesting debate in our lecture about the historicity of the Exodus story. The argument was made that it matters that the story was historical because these stories reveal something of the nature of God. An analogy was made to someone claiming to be able to play a piano - if they have never actually ever played a piano before then the claim doesn't reveal their true nature. This sounded very persuasive and was met with much approval in the room. However, I disagree with this line of arguing for two reasons. Firstly God does not need to corroborate the claims he makes about his nature with actual experience and a divine myth can reveal as much truth as a historical record. Secondly (and more significantly) as Christians we believe that God's nature is revealed in Christ. The nature of Christ is not always consistent with the nature revealed through the 'historical' actions of God in the Old Testament. Of course we can pick and choose stories that reinforce the nature of God as revealed in Christ but we must be honest that that is what happens.

Some would say we must maintain that accounts are historical because they are our source of understanding the nature of God. However, the point I want to make is that the consequence of this is that we end up with an un-Christlike God as a result of this approach. The actions of God in the Old Testament seem to be an incomplete/poor/wrong revelation of the nature of God when held against the bench mark of the ultimate revelation of God in Jesus (e.g. the sanctioning or commanding of genocide/ethnic cleansing).

I would want to argue that we find, in the Old Testament, an evolving understanding of the nature of God. I therefore don't need to cling on to historical recordings of the actions of God as indicative of the nature of God. There should be other reasons why it is argued to matter that accounts are historical.

nations

Whilst looking at the developments between the promises to Abraham in Genesis 12, 15 and 17, one of my fellow students noted how the promise to become a great 'nation' became great 'nations' in Genesis 17. It seems to me that this is anticipation of the end of Chapter 17 where there is also the promise to make a great nation from the line of Ishmael in Genesis 17:20.

Are the Muslims (who identify themselves as the line of Ishmael) this 'great nation'?

Absolutely

Sandeep writes that the loss o absolute truth is the root of all evil on his Facebook. I'm wondering whether it's true to say that there is such a thing as absolute truth, it's just that nobody knows it. Therefore any truth that is known is a relative truth and not all 'relative truths' are true.
Need to do some reading on this interesting stuff.

Faith

Graham Tomlin in our lecture spoke of the cliche that Christians sometimes hear "I wish I had your faith" as if faith is a particular psychic ability that only some people have. In fact faith is about where we put our trust. The answer therefore is to say "you do have my faith, you just place it elsewhere"!