[393.1] A NOT-TOO-MORAL MESS

It would appear that the most senior figures in the Catholic and Anglican churches have no real idea just how bad they look to a massive number of people right now. Living in an ecclesial cocoon, they express "shock" at the reaction to their determination to discriminate. I refer, of course, to the unseemly row over the Equality Act 2006 and Catholic adoption agencies. These bodies do a good job, and receive public funds in a variety of ways, including local authority fees. It is reasonable, therefore, that they comply with universal access regulations. But the church, which seems to be fixated on homosexuality at the moment (it counts for much more than baptismal identity in determining one’s standing, it seems), doesn't want to.

If you are an atheist, a Muslim, a lone parent, divorced and remarried, or cohabiting - all estates which put you outside the Catholic fold, or at least its teaching - you can adopt through one of 12 Catholic agencies, provided that you can show you are a good parent. But if you are gay and in a permanent, stable partnership, you can't - even if you are actively Christian. This will strike most people as odd, inconsistent and not a terribly good testimony to the love of God. It will also, from April 2007, contravene the UK law, which wants to give lesbian and gay people the same rights as black people, religious persons, and so on. The Cardinal Archbishop's response (backed by Canterbury and York) has been to threaten to close 'his' adoption agencies, while acknowledging that they assist the most vulnerable. This beggars belief.

In seeking compliance with SORs, no-one is requiring the church to change its teaching on homosexuality - though many of us feel that it can and should on perfectly mainstream, biblical, tradition-generated grounds. Evangelicals, too, are questioning the simplistic 'family values' agenda. No, what is being asked of the church as institution is that, in seeking the kudos and responsibility of sharing a role as a public service provider, it does so with fairness and equanimity. As government minister Harriet Harman says today, you can't be "a bit against discrimination". Overall this is another classic case of Christendom confusion. If the church wants to operate in the public arena (one it does not control, and where it will meet those with different values, moderated by an elected authority which has to make space for all) it has to face the consequences. If its conscience does not wish to do this, it has the option of withdrawing or establishing a private service. There is no threat to freedom of religion in this. Oh, and the C of E adoption agency, the Children's Society, has accepted gay couples as adoptees for the last eight years. And Vatican big-wig Cardinal Levada, when in California, allowed three such cases, too.

The sad thing is, overall the churches are patently not practicing the radical ekklesia of equals created by the Gospel of Christ (except in the breach of their own strictures), and those they are now fighting perhaps have something to show them of God's grace-drenched meaning, as they struggle with the full humanity of the homosexual minority. Meanwhile the scaremongering continues. It's tragic. And no way to promote ‘family’ to the last, the least and the lost. Suffer the little children, indeed. And Ruth Kelly. Update: Tony Blair gives personal backing to gay adoptions 25/01/07, 15:30.

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[392.1] A UNIVERSE OF LIVED MEANING

"Your weblog seems to jump back-and-forth between the politics of religion, social justice and peacemaking, heady theology, philosophy and spiritual nourishment", someone wrote to me recently. I took it as an affirmation. I think it was intended that way (!), though I realise that not everyone appreciates the whole dish. This one covers several of those topics in a particular, reflective way. It's a brief excerpt from Amazing Grace: A Vocabulary of Faith, by Kathleen Norris {pictured} - a writer I have long appreciated. There's an interview with her here. ["A strange and remarkable book… Part memoir, part meditation, it is a remarkable piece of writing… If read with humility and attention, it becomes ‘lectio divina’ or holy reading. It works the earth of the heart.” — The Boston Globe]. Hat tip to Charletta Erb.

"The problem with theology is always to keep it within its bounds as an adjunct and a response to a lived faith. In the early Christian church, we can see how quickly the creeds, which began as simple statements of faith made at baptism, and were local in character until the early fourth century, became tests of orthodoxy as the church established itself as an institutions. And as such, they could be, and were, used to include or to exclude people from the Christian fold.

"Since the earliest days of the Christian church, there has been a curious tension between Semitic storytelling, which admits a remarkable diversity of voices, perspectives and experience into the canon, and Greek philosophy which seeks to define, distinguish, pare down. It is the latter most people think of when they hear the word "theology," because at least in the Christian West, it is that tendency that has prevailed. In her book, Image as Insight, the theologian Margaret Miles states that: 'The history of the western Christianity is littered with the silent figures of Christians who found themselves excluded by each increment in verbal theological precision.'

"As a poet, I am devoted to imprecision. That is, while I try to use words accurately, I do not seek the precision of the philosopher or theologian, who tend to proceed by excluding any other definitions but their own. A well-realized poem will evoke many meanings, and as many responses as there are readers. Like a ritual, a poem is meant to be an experience, and only as it becomes incarnated as experience does it reverberate with more meaning than intellectual categories could convey. This is what keeps both poetry and ritual alive.

"As for theology, it has to be content to tag along. The Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh, commenting on John 14:6, wisely says, 'To me "I am the way" is a better statement than "I know the way".' "

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[08.41 GMT] "Jesus took the [injunction] to love our neighbour as we love ourselves, and pushed the definition of who is our neighbour, out, out, and still further out, until it reached to the ends of the earth and included all of humanity - all of God’s children." ~ Alvin Alexi Currier (courtesy of Sojo.net)

[391.2] DEVELOPING HOMEGROWN ANSWERS

On The Guardian Coment-is-Free: A household solution. Simon Barrow, Jan 23 07, 08:30am: Big Brother has shown us the banality of evil, but what about the domesticity of good? {Pic: Shilpa Shetty}. Further links to the reality TV racism media bruhaha-of-the-moment are in the article.

"What we haven't seen in Celebrity Big Brother, any more than in the rest of society, is people who are able to mediate conflict - better, transform it. Such skills exist. But they are low-key, require patient commitment in the face of provocation, and remain hugely under-resourced.

Conflict transformation isn't about imposing solutions by fiat or force. It involves developing human relationships beyond the place where insecurity translates into outwardly directed aggression, reshaping it instead towards personally resourced (but also deeply social and political) change. More. {This piece was selected as an 'editor's pick' today}

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[391.1] CIVICS, POLITICS & URBANITY

There was a thoughtful piece in Saturday's Times newspaper (20 January 2007) from Jonathan Sacks, Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the Commonwealth, entitled A gentle reminder that soft answers can turn away wrath. He observes:

When did we lose the culture of civility? When did anger become a political weapon? When did the era of gentleness die, to be replaced with our current age of rage? One thing is certain: this is a dangerous development, and we must pull back from the brink.

Often the origin of words tells a story. “Civility” comes from the same root as civilian and civilisation. “Polite” has the same origin as politics and polity. “Urbane” derives from the same root as urban. All three come from Classical words meaning a city and its governance. Why so?

In antiquity, cities, especially those on the Mediterranean, were where people of different faiths and cultures came together to trade. They had to learn to trust one another. They had to develop an ethic that worked with strangers as well as friends. That is where civility was born.

What follows raises some interesting questions. I personally think we need deeper traditions than trade to offset the drift to war - the kind of alternative, deeply-rooted communities of civility of which Alisdair McIntyre speaks at the end of After Virtue, in fact. Commerce, by contrast, has sowed as many seeds of division as it has assuaged. (Hmmnn.... can you assuage a seed?) Anyway, it's a bad place to put too much faith. Similarly, I wouldn't blame everything on 'politicization'. This is often the charge of those who, in fact, have power. The question is not whether to engage in politics, but how and with what relationship to a lived recognition of the humanity and dignity of our imagined opponents as well as our supposed allies - noting that these divisions may prove to be more malleable and complex than tactics alone allows. (I suspect that Sacks would broadly concur with these points, while being more favourably disposed to the civic efficacy of markets than I am.)

Nonetheless, the problems that Sacks refers to are real - and cross the boundaries of religion and non-religion, too. Anyone who reads the feedback on The Guardian's Comment-is-Free will know that, sadly, some of the apostles of redemption through reason can be as belligerent, intolerant and exclusive as those they readily damn as possessing false faith. More than a few of the reactions to Inayat Bunglawala's Everything is illuminated, which seeks a bridge between Islam and Enlightenment, bear this out. The issue is not disagreement, it is bile, vitriol and what I call "the eliminative mentality": I can only be what I am by excluding what you are. Anyway the concluding comment by the Chief Rabbi is very apposite:

"A soft answer turns away wrath,” says the Book of Proverbs, “but a harsh word stirs up anger.” “Reckless words pierce like a sword, but the tongue of the wise brings healing.” Verbal violence, the Bible suggests, is a prelude to physical violence. Those who cannot sustain a civil conversation will eventually find it impossible to sustain a civilisation.

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[390.1] HEART IS WHERE THE HOME IS

"Welcome is one of the signs that a community is alive. To invite others to live with us is a sign that we aren't afraid, that we have a treasure of truth and of peace to share ... A community which refuses to welcome - whether through fear, weariness, insecurity, a desire to cling to comfort, or just because it is fed up with visitors - is dying spiritually." ~ Jean Vanier

For any who do not know, Vanier is the founder of the international network of L'Arche communities. These are found in many different cultures and reflect the ethnic and religious composition of the locales in which they exist. They share a common philosophy and approach, the goal being to bring together people living with developmental disabilities and those who assist them to live and work to create homes, recognizing one another’s unique value and gifts. The UK communities can be found here.

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[389.1] NOT SO WELL DESIGNED

Thanks for those who sent notes to me following the Heaven and Earth show on BBC1 this morning. I did a 20-minute interview on the subject of what's wrong, theologically as well as scientifically, with 'intelligent design' creationism. Only a very brief snippet got used, and sadly many key points were overlooked in the feature as a whole. For example, the presenter kept referring to ID as "a theory" and the segment referred to it as "an alternative to Darwinism". It is neither of these things. It offers no testable hypotheses, as a scientist from the Wellcome Foundation (Professor Mark Walport, a leading expert on immunology and genetics) pointed out - but without being given time to explain why. ID accepts some features of evolutionary theory, but rejects others, on grounds which have been thoroughly taken apart by experts in the field as well as at the 2005 Dover trial. Incidentally, the main proponent of ID on the programme was not a scientist but Alistair Noble, an educationist who works for a Scottish Christian lobby group, CARE. His odd claim that ID is science because it starts by making claims about it could, of course, be said of many other dubious and discredited ideas - astrology, for example.

One of the things I had done (though you didn't get to see it) was explain why the so-called 'intelligent designer' of ID is a caricature of God as traditionally understood by Christians. God gifts the whole world process (not allegedly 'unexplainable' bits of it) ex-nihilo rather than through manufacture. What God 'creates' ('lets-into-being' is a better term these days) is potentiality and self-generativity. It is the resulting freedom of the world in relation to the essence of the divine that allows the possibility of truth, beauty and wisdom to develop uncoerced in the direction of relationship. Love requires contigency, in other words, not manipulation from without. ID also undermines the essential message of Genesis, which is not a hypothesis about life-mechanics, but rather a powerful, figurative, multi-layered affirmation that the world is good and fruitful, despite our marring of it - a notion directed against Ancient Near Eastern myths which said otherwise.

What ID does, as with creationism, is to create an inherent opposition between nature and the divine, so that the more you have of one, the less you have of the other (as if they were competing 'things') - exactly the kind of antithesis that the Jewish and Christian narrative is trying to overcome. It is also based on flawed metaphysics and the basic philosophical category error which takes absence of evidence to be an evidence of absence: viz "we're stuck with this limit, so an extra terrestial must have done it". This isn't science, and it's terrible god-of-the-gaps theology in spite of its (oft-refuted) claims to have found an end-point not a gap.

Nor did 'Heaven and Earth' point out that the UK Department for Education and Science has already rejected ID and creationism as inappropriate for inclusion in school biology lessons on scientific grounds; that the major Christian denominations have no problem with evolutionary biology and oppose creationism; and that many of those promoting ID, and claiming it as a scientific proposition, are actually Young Earth Creationists who don't even accept what they are putting forward. Rather, it is part of a political 'wedge' strategy. Get the distant cousin in and he'll bring all his relatives, essentially. In introducing Philip Johnson, an ID creationism advocate, the programme could also have mentioned that he denies the predominant scientific view that the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) is causally central in giving rise to AIDS.

Altogether, less than satisfactory. But for many people, not least popular TV producers, the issues are dense and complex. So one simply has to go on communicating. My agenda includes a couple of popular pieces on the theological contradictions of ID, one for The Guardian CIF and one for my Ekklesia column. When I get the time, as I keep saying.

See also the excellent talk.origins archives and NCSE's review of creationism around the world (including the UK) and the Vatican response to ID. Thoroughly recommended, for those who want to know more, are these titles; and Not In Our Classrooms: Why Intelligent Design is wrong in our schools. Theologian Ted Peters has also co-authored with scientist Martinez Hewlett a very good primer for local congregations, Can You Believe in God and Evolution? A Guide For the Perplexed (2006).

Also: Blair accused of complacency on classroom creationism; Christians and humanists call on government to rule out 'creationism' in science classes; Creationism distorts truth in science, says vicar; UK anti-evolutionists seek to lure parents with new website; US churches celebrate 'Evolution Sunday'; Churches urged to challenge Intelligent Design; Theologians and scientists welcome Intelligent Design ban; Schools minister says creationism has no place in classroom science; Exam Board rules out creationism in UK classrooms; Vatican astronomer says creationism is superstition; Archbishop of Canterbury criticises teaching of creationism; Creationists target schools and universities in Britain; Dawkins attacks creationist plans; Faith schools may allow extremists in, say critics; Creationists plan six more schools; Christians to explore values in science and technology; New Christian academy rejects creationism as 'rubbish'.

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[10.20 GMT] New Irish Anglican primate favours C of E disestablishment and an end to anti-Catholic ban (full story)
Simon Barrow, co-director of the UK religious think tank Ekklesia, which has in the past said that disestablishment is desirable for the health of both the church and a plural society, welcomed Bishop Alan Harper's remarks."It would be good if the thoughtful, forward-looking position of the new Irish Primate could re-open a proper debate among the churches in England, not just the Church of England itself," said Barrow. He continued: "Binding the church to the state through the crown restricts the freedom of both, and mortgages the Christian message to a reliance on governing authority rather than Jesus, the Prince of Peace, who was actually put to death by a religion-state alliance."

[01.02 GMT] Being suspicious of Christian unity. Ekklesia, Jan 21, 2007. Simon Barrow suggests a different understanding and pattern of ecumenism for the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity 2007 ... more

[09.51 GMT] TUBE CORN. If you are watching TV on Sunday 21 January 2007 in the UK you can catch Ekklesia's Simon Barrow on the 'Heaven and Earth Show' (10.00 am BBC 1) talking about science, theology, creationism and the problem with 'Intelligent Design'; and colleague Jonathan Bartley on 'The Moral of the Story' (11.20pm ITV) discussing the rise in interest rates, global warming and the racism row in Big Brother.

[17.26 GMT] GOVERNMENT BACKS STUDENT MEDIATION CALL. A UK government minister, education chief Bill Rammell, has given his backing to the recommendations of a report from the think-tank Ekklesia which proposes the resolution of conflicts between a number of Christian Unions and university Students' Unions, through mediation rather than court battles. Full story here. Also: Full text of the letter from Bill Rammell here (*.PDF file). Ekklesia's report on Christian Unions and their complaints is here.

[388.1] CARELESS TALK COSTS GOD

"We have to be careful about the level on which we place the infinite. If we put it on a level which is only suitable for the finite, it does not matter much what name we give it". Simone Weil, quoted by D.Z. Philips in The Problem of Evil and the Problem of God (SCM Press, 2004). Good God-talk is generative, imaginative and life-reforming, but is also careful not reduce the infinity of the divine to a superannuation of human being, its conceptions and fantasies. One of the challenges of theology at the moment (confronted with popular non-sense such as anti-Darwinian Intelligent Design, which I have to talk about on TV this weekend) is that it needs to aspire to creativity, to enable us to be surprised by God, so to speak; but it also has a regulative function in requiring us to discipline our speech, so that it does not reduce God to - in the case of ID - a projection of our own understanding of reality which is somehow in competition with the natural processes of the world, rather than donative of them (which is what is meant by 'creation'). This is put well in a recent Times article about God-talk (sadly mis-titled by an editor) from the redoubtable Brian Davies, an English Dominican and Professor of Philosophy at Fordham University, New York, USA. Also worthwhile is 'emerging chuch' scholar Peter Rollins on How (Not) to Speak of God (SPCK, 2006). I've had a brief look at this, and read a few reviews. I want to give it more serious attention when I get some time.

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[07.06 GMT] The bridge-building path By Simon Barrow: The legacy of Martin Luther King reminds us of our tendency to turn 'the other' into a threat rather than a source of potential enrichment. Profile; all SB articles. Guardian Unlimited: Comment is free - http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/.

[387.2] ESTRANGED BEHAVIOUR

Absurdity as the theatre of war. Simon Barrow contemplates Bush, Camus, Iraq, oil, and the perversity of hope - Ekklesia, Jan 14, 2007:

“Don't wait for the last judgment - it takes place every day”, remarked Albert Camus, the existentialist philosopher of life in the face of the absurd. An atheist himself, he also once challengingly declared: “What the world requires of the Christians is that they should continue to be Christians.” You don’t get much more theological than that.

Since George W. Bush made the unlikely assertion, via his press secretary Tony Snow, that his Summer 2006 vacation reading had included Camus’ famous novel L’Etranger (‘The Outsider’ - better 'The Outside-Insider'), one has to wonder what the US President would make of these observations – especially in the light of his own current plans concerning the future of Iraq. Continued.

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[387.1] THE TERROR OF GRATUITY

"It is hard to believe in [Christ’s love] because it is a devouring love. It is a terrible thing to fall into the hands of a living God. If we do once catch a glimpse of it we are afraid of it. Once we recognize that we are [children] of God, that the seed of divine life has been painted in us at baptism, we are overcome by that obligation placed upon us of growing in the love of God."
~ Dorothy Day, from 'To Die For Love', The Catholic Worker, September 1948.

"Ultimately, we are reborn to love because in this expanding, gracious space within us, we arrive at the astonishing presence of God at the core of our life. We blunder into the heart of God and find our own."
~ Sue Monk Kidd, from Firstlight

"Humanism was not wrong in thinking that truth, beauty, liberty, and equality are of infinite value, but in thinking that [we human beings] can get them for [ourselves] without grace." ~ Simone Weil, Inspiration Occitanien

[Pic: Dorothy Day, (c) Catholic Worker]

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[01.22 GMT] SOUND ADVICE. “If malevolence be spoken of you and it be true, correct yourself, if it be a lie, laugh at it.” (Epictetus)

[01.14 GMT] "There are just some activities that there are no Christ-like ways of doing....All attempts today to justify violence from the life of Jesus or his teachings are devoid of spiritual and intellectual merit." ~Bishop Emmanuel Charles McCarthy (1992 Nobel Peace Prize Nominee and former U.S. Marine pilot)

[00.12 GMT] SCM joins calls for mediation not legal action in Christian Union student row (Ekklesia).

[386.1] KEEPING IT IN THE FAMILY?

I haven't read it yet, but this book looks right up my street. Very topical, too, given the arguments currently raging in the churches on both sides of the Atlantic. It's written by a family friend with whom I've just reconnected - indeed, connected for the first time, as far as my adulthood goes. Deirdre Good is Professor of New Testament at The General Theological Seminary (Episcopal Church) in New York City. A widely published author and lecturer, she is also a programme consultant to television on religious history. Her most recent book is Mariam, the Magdalen, and the Mother, a collection of essays on the Mary figures of the Bible.

"Many people claim to know what Jesus would say or do in the kinds of ethical dilemmas we face today, but applying "traditional" Christian values out of context actually sells Jesus' teaching short. What are Christian family values, Deirdre Good asks in Jesus' Family Values, why are there so many interpretations of what Jesus actually taught and said, and which of these biblical values should guide our lives?

"She begins by setting this conversation in the context of the Greek, Roman, Jewish, and first-century sectarian world, and criticises the attempts to use biblical texts literally in advocating for marriage and the family. Other chapters take up the meaning of house and home, marriage and divorce, and biological ties vs. extended families and communities.

"Through careful attention to the words and stories of Matthew, Luke, Mark, John, and the letters of Paul, Good provides an ideal method for studying the Bible to find out what it actually says to our communities and households today. " (From the publisher's blurb)

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[02.01 GMT] SORs UPDATES: Anti-gay rights activists do not represent most religious opinion, say critics; Parliamentary challenge to UK equalities regulation fails. See also the ongoing coverage on Thinking Anglicans.