In a recent post on Ben Myers’ superb Faith and Theology blog, Kim Fabricius continued his consistently thought-provoking ‘propositions’ series with ‘Ten propositions on marriage’. In the tenth of his propositions Kim claims:

Finally, if the heart of marriage is friendship, if marriage is for procreation in a gratuitous rather than an instrumental sense, as overflow rather than essence, then do we not open the way for the blessing of same-sex relationships? I think we do, though I think the term “marriage” is unhelpful.

He concludes:

The point is this: if Luke Timothy Johnson is right to suggest that “If sexual virtue and vice are defined covenantally rather than biologically, then it is possible to place homosexual and heterosexual activity in the same context,” it is also possible to see same-sex relationships, blessed by the church, as an analogue of the relationship between God and his people, and a model of the church’s own proper economy of grace. In short, nihil obstat.

It seems to me that Kim’s position as outlined in this post in general leans too far in the direction of a definition of marriage in terms of ‘close personal relationship’. Within such a definition (in which gender and other things are treated as largely irrelevant), a strong analogy between committed same-sex relationships and marriage seems natural.

Putting the question of whether the church should bless committed same-sex relationships or not to one side (the purpose of this post is not that of questioning the legitimacy of homosexual bonding in general), I think that this supposed analogy needs to be examined more closely.

Kim speaks of procreation’s relationship to marriage as ‘gratuitous’ rather than ‘instrumental’, as ‘overflow rather than essence’. There is a sense in which this is profoundly true. However, I think that the ‘gratuitous’ character of marriage, most fully expressed in procreation—but by no means limited to it—is worthy of more attention. Is it not the ‘gratuitous’ character of marriage that marks it out as an especially blessed—and ‘graced’—relationship? Sometimes gratuitous overflow is ‘of the essence’. The fact that this peculiar grace of procreation belonging to marriage has not been given to homosexual relationships, is surely something that we should reflect upon before we think about any close identification between the two (which would have the effect of minimizing the significance of the gift of procreation relative to the institution of marriage).

The relationship between marriage and children and marriage and society is also related to this larger question of the ‘overflow’ of marriage. Society’s historical privileging of marriage and the Church’s conviction that marriage is peculiarly blessed have had far more than marriage’s creation (or recognition) of a close personal relationship in view. It is the manner in which marriage forms the bonds of society that has the greatest significance here. Marriage unites different families; it unites the sexes; it unites generations.

The public character of the marriage ceremony testifies to the fact that marriage is a deeply political institution, a profoundly personal bond designed to ‘overflow’ in a manner than forms and helps to sustain a larger society (this is one of the key reasons why ‘pre-ceremonial sex’—to use Kim’s expression—really is a problem). In our society marriage is increasingly understood in terms of personal fulfillment; the renunciation that is central to marriage has been lost sight of. The self-denial involved in marriage—the self-denial that leads to its overflowing character and to the peculiar joys that are appropriate to this act of renunciation—has been replaced with the identification of marriage with gratification. Privatized understandings of marriage downplay the importance of the ‘overflowing’ character of the relationship, defining the relationship almost wholly in terms of the needs and desires of the immediate partners in the relationship.

Marriage should involve a progressive turning away from the concerns of one generation to the concerns of the next. It begins with the man leaving his father and mother and leads to the husband and wife committing themselves as father and mother to the task of raising a new generation. This has certainly been central to traditional Christian understandings of marriage and has been one of the primary reasons why society has valued marriage so highly. Marriage is there, in large part, for the service of children. The manner in which marriage is designed to serve the next generation is one of the main reasons why it has traditionally been regarded as important that this bond be lifelong and exclusive. When marriage becomes defined primarily in terms of the needs and desires of the husband and wife, divorce and infidelity will cease to be the issues that they were in early understandings of the nature of the union.

Since marriage is an essential glue of society, I believe that we must be incredibly careful before we even think of changing our definition of it. Since we cannot separate our definition of marriage from our definition of family, the needs of children should be one of our highest concerns here. Would allowing same-sex ‘marriages’ compromise the rights of children (in the ordinary course of affairs) to know and be raised by their biological parents? Do we want to encourage the widespread use of reproductive technologies? Do we really believe that it is indifferent to the welfare of children whether they are raised by a mother and a father or by two ‘fathers’ or two ‘mothers’ (at least one of which will not be biologically related to the child)? Does a view of marriage that downplays the significance of its permanently binding character (and its exclusivity, for that matter)—as the close personal relationship model does—really provide the resources for us to create stable families for the raising of children?

One of the things that Kim’s post testifies to is the decay of the idea of marriage as an ‘institution’. Marriage is only an ‘institution’ when it establishes permanence (across generations in the preservation of the institution, and in marital relationships themselves), transcends merely individual lives and purposes and imposes an order upon our actions and relationships. Marriage as an institution is devalued when we start to view cohabitation as merely ‘pre-ceremonial sex’.

As a single guy in my mid-twenties, I have many friends who are cohabiting. Though some of these relationships do possess a very clear sense of commitment, it seems clear to me that the ‘commitment’ in such relationships is not to be confused with the sort of commitment that marriage entails. What most of my friends are not prepared to give at the moment is commitment to any ‘institution’ of marriage, or, at least, they regard their sexual relationships as something that can happily exist without the sort of constraints and formation provided by such a public institution. The commitment involved in marriage is a commitment before God and society and to the institution of marriage. Cohabiting couples lack both dimensions of this important commitment.

Marriage is a shared societal project, which brings the generations together. Marriage is not only forward-looking, but places the relationship of the new husband and wife in the historical context of the succession of generations. Cohabitation and same sex relationships both fail to match up to the institution of marriage on this front. Cohabitation fails to commit itself to this intergenerational project and lacks the dimension of vocation that this project provides. It does not properly submit itself to guidance and oversight of past generations and it does not provide a stable setting for the growth of future generations.

Same sex relationships can at best be only parasitic on the natural form of the succession of relationships provided by the integration of the institutional and biological forms for procreation in marriage.

Marriage is also the key institution in which the sexes are brought together. In a society where men and women increasingly act as if they don’t need each other, are we to treat the institution of marriage so carelessly? Are the sexes of the partners really so indifferent to the institution of marriage that men could form a perfectly good marriage without the involvement of women, or vice versa? Are women and men so dispensable for each other, in the very institution which provides a primary context for their being created for each other?

We can press this line further: Do children really need fathers? Do children really need mothers? Do we believe that fathers and mothers are interchangeable? In a society where so many fathers fail to play a role in the raising of their children are we to say that they are unnecessary for the well-being of their children and play no essential role with a modern understanding of the family? What message does this send to single young men like me about the importance of our role in society?

The de-institutionalization of marriage is merely the flipside of a definition of marriage primarily in terms of close personal relationships. Once marriage has been defined in such terms, there is considerably less reason to bother with it, either for society or the married partners. In such circumstances, the admission of same sex marriage is largely a symbolic gesture, affirming the equality of such relationships with heterosexual ones in general. Once it has been granted, it could be argued that there are many good reasons why one should no longer want to bother with it at all.

Much as I admire Kim’s obvious theological acumen, I find the position put forward in his post dangerous and irresponsible in various respects. Kim seems to pay little attention to the possible consequences of such a redefining of marriage, for children, for the relationship between the generations and the relationship between the sexes. The cultural fallout from such approaches has the potential to damage millions of lives, as it compromises the glue of family that is fundamental to many dimensions of our society’s unity.

Church leaders are uniquely positioned to shape and protect the institution of marriage and family in an age when it is under threat. Pastors and priests are active in the key rites of passage, they represent larger communities in which families can be supported, they provide spiritual guidance over long periods of time, have a greater and more intimate access to families than almost any others outside of the families themselves, present people with the ideals to which their relationships should aspire (both in their teaching and through their personal examples), and through their teaching play a crucial role in forming the ways that their congregations regard and order their personal relationships. Consequently, when Church leaders start to waver on the definitions of marriage and family in such a manner, we really have cause for concern.

A week ago I graduated from the University of St. Andrews. The graduation ceremony was very enjoyable, but was made far more memorable on account of the fact that René Girard was being presented with an honorary doctorate.

I have long been a huge fan of the work of René Girard. In contrast to many other thinkers, Girard is renowned, not for many insights in various areas of study, but for a singular idea of profound explanatory potential, a simple insight that illuminates innumerable otherwise perplexing questions. Girard’s great insight is that human desire, far from being purely individual and arising within us apart from external influence, is imitative and ‘inter-dividual’ in its constitution. From this single insight great light is shed upon social and interpersonal dynamics, religion, mythology and culture.

Girard claims that we learn what to desire by imitating the desires of others. This form of behaviour is easiest to observe in the case of children. Put two children in a room with a hundred toys and it is quite likely that they will end up fighting over the same one. Rather than arising spontaneously or being fixed on predefined objects, each child’s desire for the object is mediated and reinforced by the desire of the other. Girard argues that desire is ‘mimetic’ in character; our desire does not directly fix itself on objects, but is mediated by the desire of others for certain objects. Invested with the aura of the other’s desire, certain objects can become suddenly greatly desirable to us.

The relationship of imitation (often mutual) between the desiring person and the mediator of their desire is deeply important. Objects of desire are largely interchangeable, but the bond between the individual and the mediator of his or her desire is far stronger than this. This relationship of imitation can be manifested in a deep attraction between the top mimetic partners, an attraction that can transform into antagonism with incredible ease. Both the attraction and the antagonism find a common source in the imitative relationship that exists between the two partners. In such a mimetic relationship the one who desires wants to be like the model of his or her desire in all things, to occupy their position (Girard’s account of the Oedipus complex follows this line).

As they both seek the same object of desire and cannot share it, it is not surprising that rivalry develops. Girard finds this dynamic in much great literature. For instance, two friends desire the same woman and become each other’s rival. For Girard, the most important relationship in this classic love triangle is the relationship between the two friends. In such a relationship the woman may well be interchangeable with almost any other woman. What makes her significant is not what she is in herself, but what she is as surrounded by the aura of the other’s desire. She is desirable because she is desired by the other. Girard observes the way in which such mimetic rivalries escalate and how ‘scapegoats’ serve as lightning conductors for the violence that these rivalries breed. Warring parties can be reconciled through the scapegoat mechanism, as they join together in venting their violence on a third party.

The fact of imitative desire helps to explain the contagious power of certain evil actions. After the first stone has been thrown, each following stone becomes progressively easier to cast, having a model to follow. Imitation and the scapegoat mechanism illuminates the manner in which evil reports and false accusations can gain virtually unstoppable momentum; the initiation of such a report is like the first fall of stones down a mountainside, which starts the landslide. The guilt of the scapegoat is everywhere presumed and no fair hearing is given. As a single false report is repeated and parroted enough, it gains in credibility with each repetition, until the unanimity created by the contagion of imitation makes its truth appear undeniable.

Girard’s insight concerning mimetic desire can help us understand some of the mechanics of dysfunctional relationships and psychologies. For instance, the masochist is someone who desires the unobtainable, or always thwarts his own attempts to gain the object of his desire. He desires the failure of his desire to reach its supposed object, subconsciously aware of the fact that, if the desire were to achieve its object, it would merely have secured its own death. If the masochist were in fact to gain the object of his desire, it would cease to be desirable to him. The thing that makes the object desirable is the obstacle (whether the prohibition or the person) that obstructs the way.

Masochism is central to the psychology of sin. Sin is aroused by the Law, because the Law sets up a system of prohibitions, which invests the transgression with the aura of desirability for it. Apart from the Law sin lacks this degree of desirability. In the temptation of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden we see such a dynamic in operation. The fact that the fruit is forbidden is used by Satan to excite the desire of Adam and Eve. Satan portrays God as a model-obstacle to Adam and Eve: God places a taboo on the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil because he wishes to prevent Adam and Eve from achieving the self-sufficiency that he enjoys. Satan thus twists the natural relationship of imitation that mankind should have with God into a perverted and masochistic one. Rather than the positive imitation of God’s desire that mankind should display, Satan presents God’s desire as an obstacle.

It is this sort of logic that Slavoj Žižek appeals to when he observes that, with the ‘death of God’, far from everything being permitted, nothing is permitted. The perverted desire of sin depends on God for its survival. Where there is no God left to prohibit, everything ceases to be desirable. Sin is drawn to death. It desires that which is forbidden, but it cannot satisfy that desire. Every forbidden fruit will turn to dust in its mouth. Sinners desire the death of God, but this death of God leaves them further from satisfaction than they were beforehand.

Mimetic desire can explain why we often chose as models of desire people who are indifferent to us or despise us (unsmiling models create the aura of desirability that goes with top brand products). Their indifference is seen to be indicative of a self-sufficiency that we lack. We desire to be self-sufficient like them and so we desire the objects that they desire.

Our sense of self-worth is not unaffected by mimetic desire. Our self-worth can often involve imitation of how others value us. This can produce ugly relationships on occasions. The girlfriend who keeps returning to the abusive boyfriend can be hooked on him like a drug. As he continues to mistreat her, her sense of self-worth plummets and becomes increasingly dependent on any displays of affection that he might give her. Far from undermining his role as a model of her self-valuation, the abuse of the boyfriend may actually serve to reinforce his role. A person in such an abusive situation may well reject the very people who most care for her (their care and love being taken as a sign of their insufficiency), while being irresistibly drawn to the one who despises and abuses her. The violence of the boyfriend reinforces her belief that beyond this violence lies the promised land of self-worth. However, deep down she knows that this is an illusory promise; if the violence were to cease, she would not enjoy the self-worth that she seeks. Ultimately it is the violence that creates the illusion; were the violence to end the illusion would disappear too.

Girard’s insight into the mimetic character of desire challenges us to ask questions about the reasons why we desire and don’t desire certain things. For example, do we pay a high price for items because we value them, or do we value items because we pay a high price for them? I know a bookseller who sends out a regular mailing list. If one of the books doesn’t sell after a number of mailings he will, counter-intuitively, raise the price of the book in question. The book almost invariably sells in the next mailing. Supposing the price tag to be an indicator of the desire of the other, we can invest certain objects with an aura of desirability that they might otherwise lack. Girard also helps us to uncover the hidden causes of our rivalries and exposes the manner in which we have unwittingly used others as our scapegoats.

Having discussed the meaning of Romans 1-4 at considerable length in the comments of this recent Green Baggins post, I decided that it might be worthwhile posting this brief exegetical essay I wrote on Romans 2:14-15 a couple of months ago. It may not be as polished as I would like it to be, but it makes a basic case for a reading of these verses as a reference to Gentile Christians, and helps to support the broader argument that I have been making over on Lane’s blog.

Questions of Interpretation
Few verses in Romans are perplexing as 2:14-15. Patience and care are demanded of the exegete, lest, in pulling too vigorously on one of the threads bound up in the complex weave of Paul’s argument, while neglecting others, the passage is rendered knottier than it already is, or Paul’s argument begins to unravel in our hands.

Perhaps the key questions facing the exegete of Romans 2:14-15 concern the identity of the persons spoken of in these verses. Are these doers of the Law real or hypothetical?[1] Are they Christian (as Ambrosiaster,[2] the later Augustine,[3] Barth, Cranfield[4] and Wright maintain[5]), non-Christian (the historically dominant reading, held by most of the Reformers[6] among others) or even pre-Christian believing Gentiles? Is the portrayal of them intended to be positive or negative?[7]

The role of the word φυσει in this context is also a matter of debate. Does it modify the verb ποιωσιν, describing the manner in which these Gentiles do the things of the Law, or does it belong with the earlier part of the clause, in which case it refers to the fact that Gentiles do not possess the Law by birthright, in the manner of the Jews? Is Paul making a reference to some form of natural Law in this context?

A number of further questions must also be addressed. What sort of ‘doing’ of the Law is here envisioned? How are we to understand the work of the Law written on the hearts of these Gentiles? Is this an allusion to OT passages concerning the New Covenant, or is a reference to an inner moral sense possessed by every person?

Within this post I will present an argument for favouring a Gentile Christian reading of these verses. I will engage with some of the principal objections that have been raised against this reading and will explore the manner in which the reading that I propose functions in the context of Paul’s larger argument. (more…)

It has been several months since I last blogged here; it is about time that I made some sort of return. As a number of you already know, this blog is currently convalescing after having been hacked by blog spammers. I trust that, in time, everything will return to normal. However, at present there are still several posts with hidden script at the end of them, and a couple of dozen other posts have been deleted altogether. My blog has also been removed from Google’s index. Lord-willing, I will be able to get it back on within the next month or so. Fortunately, most of the damaged and deleted posts can be recovered and, thanks to the generous help of Jon Barlow and my brother Peter, most of the problems seem to be resolved.

I thought that I would start with a relatively brief links post, before blogging some more substantial material within the next few weeks.

***Jon Mackenzie, a (particularly smart) fellow student here at the University of St. Andrews has kicked off the 2nd Annual Karl Barth Blog Conference, with a superb exploration of the relationship between philosophy and theology in the work of Eberhard Jüngel.

There are a number of parts of the post that invite thoughtful engagement. My initial questions have to do with the strength of the exegetical underpinnings of Jüngel’s approach, most particular with regard to his understanding of the New Testament’s teaching on the subject of faith. One of the general effects of the New Perspective on Paul has been that of throwing the Christological (subjective genitive readings of pistis Iesou Christou), corporate and active dimensions of faith into sharper relief, situating the faith of the individual within the faith of the community that exists out of the faithfulness of Christ, who is the manifestation of the faithfulness of God and the author and perfecter of the whole narrative of Faith. While Bultmannian and overly existential understandings of faith might be called into question, one wonders whether such exegetical readings of faith might provide a more secure foundation for Jüngel’s theological approach and provide an even more Christological reading of faith.

***Peter Leithart comments on Matthew Levering’s new book, Participatory Biblical Exegesis over on the First Things blog.

Levering’s decision to focus attention on history is a brilliant theological and rhetorical move. Theologically, Levering recognizes that exegesis always assumes some conception of history. Typology, as de Lubac recognized, was not so much a way of reading texts as a way of reading history. Rhetorically, by focusing on history, Levering upends historical-critical exegesis in its own living room. Historical-critical scholarship has boasted of its historical achievements, often with considerable justification. Yet it has also used historical scholarship as a solvent of theological interpretation. Levering could have taken the easy, polite route of saying that historical critics only need to add a theological layer to their historical interpretation. Instead, he mounts a direct assault: “Historical exegesis can’t even get history right.”

***One of my lecturers, Steve Holmes posts some thoughts on confessionalism in light of the Enns affair.
***N.T. Wright is on the Colbert Report on Thursday! [HT: Team Redd]
***Lots of great lectures in the Calvin Seminary lecture archives. I have listened to several of these already, including those by Miroslav Volf, Oliver O’Donovan and N.T. Wright. However, ‘Why Only an Atheist Can Believe: Politics Between Fear and Trembling’ by Slavoj Žižek looks like it will be worth watching. Žižek is even more fun to watch than he is to read or listen to! [HT: Chris Tilling]
***Andrew Cameron — Beyond Homophobia [HT: Michael Jenson]. More balanced than most and some good observations along the way. For instance,

However I want to suggest that the term is not really that helpful. Of course it does have handy political uses. I am accused of homophobia; I reply ‘but I am not!’ Therefore according to the well-known theorist in political rhetoric, George Lakoff, in that moment of reply I lose the argument. By resisting the label, I actually give the game away to my accuser. In the odd ways of modern political discourse, to resist a definition actually makes it stick all the harder. To protest that I am not-a-homophobe (or not-a-anything-else) somehow proves that really, I am.

My accuser’s terms of engagement have won the day.

***Daniel Kirk has some thoughts on and quotes from James D.G. Dunn’s revised edition of The New Perspective of Paul. I am halfway through reading this myself (it is a rather weighty book, over 500 pages in length) and highly recommend it to anyone wanting to get their head around the NPP. I will probably be posting some quotes in the next few days.

The 97 page-long introductory essay — ‘The New Perspective: whence, what and whither?’ — is itself worth the price of admission. Guy Prentiss Waters’ Justification and the New Perspectives on Paul comes in for particularly scathing criticism. Anyone who was ever under the delusion that Waters fairly represented Wright and Dunn should be completely disabused of that notion by the time that they finish reading this essay.

***During the period of my absence from blogging here at Alastair.Adversaria, I took up online Boggle in a serious way, giving it up just after the end of my final exams (I finished in the top ten of the almost 60,000 players of Prolific). A few months ago I started a blog devoted to online wordgames. I doubt that any of you will be interested, but if anyone is — The Bogglers.***Today is Firefox 3 download day. Let’s break a record!
***Nicholas Carr asks, ‘Is Google Making Us Stupid?’.

When the Net absorbs a medium, that medium is re-created in the Net’s image. It injects the medium’s content with hyperlinks, blinking ads, and other digital gewgaws, and it surrounds the content with the content of all the other media it has absorbed. A new e-mail message, for instance, may announce its arrival as we’re glancing over the latest headlines at a newspaper’s site. The result is to scatter our attention and diffuse our concentration.

The Net’s influence doesn’t end at the edges of a computer screen, either. As people’s minds become attuned to the crazy quilt of Internet media, traditional media have to adapt to the audience’s new expectations. Television programs add text crawls and pop-up ads, and magazines and newspapers shorten their articles, introduce capsule summaries, and crowd their pages with easy-to-browse info-snippets. When, in March of this year, The New York Times decided to devote the second and third pages of every edition to article abstracts, its design director, Tom Bodkin, explained that the “shortcuts” would give harried readers a quick “taste” of the day’s news, sparing them the “less efficient” method of actually turning the pages and reading the articles. Old media have little choice but to play by the new-media rules.

Read the whole thing.

***50 office-speak phrases we love to hate
***Cut Out Conversational Placeholders for Better Persuasion
***Joe Carter reposts an old post on the subject of LOLCatz. Ben Myers links us to a LOLCatz Bible. Not sure that I will be switching any time soon.

***Scans see gay brain differences
***How to Live With Just 100 Things
***Worst Office Freakout Ever

***Kevin Pieterson’s switch-hitting against New Zealand

The legality of the shot has been called into question. Unlike the traditional reverse sweep, switch-hitting involves a changed hand position and stance, effectively changing the offside into the legside, complicating lbw and legside no-ball rules, apart from anything else. Jonathan Agnew discusses it here. I suspect that it will be banned, which will be a pity. It is an entertaining thing to watch. UPDATE: It has just been given the all-clear by the MCC!

***A Sheep with the Brain of a Goat

‘Well, when we started out we were trying to cure Alzheimers. Now we have a sheep with the mind of a goat…’

The following are my notes from a lecture delivered this evening, 20th December, by N.T. Wright in the University of St. Andrews. The following provides a general idea of what the good bishop said, but should not be depended upon too much. Doubtless other eyewitnesses will come forward with conflicting accounts…

As someone who gave up studying physics and chemistry more or less as soon as he had the opportunity and devoted little effort to excelling in them when he did study them, Wright finds it odd to find himself in the position of being looked upon to provide an answer to such a question. The question itself is strange: it reminds him of the person who, when asked if he believed in infant baptism, responded in the affirmative, assuring the questioner that he had seen it happen with his own eyes. There are scientists who do believe in the resurrection. In answering the question, Wright wants to explore the fault lines between different ways of knowing, between the forms of knowing advanced by science and by history, and the way of knowing that belongs to faith, hope, and love. These ways of knowing overlap in various ways.

We are often told that over recent centuries we have enjoyed an upward path towards the light of reason—the narrative of the Enlightenment. While Wright has no desire to return to premodern dentistry or sanitation or transport, for example, he feels that the modern narrative is limited. Science has not proved sufficient to provide us with the wholeness of life that we really need.

Plato regarded ‘faith’ as a sort of intermediate form of knowing, a sort of cushioned knowledge, a sense that the terminology retains in much common parlance. We often use the term ‘knowledge’ in a positivistic sense and ‘believe’ in a loose sense, to refer to matters of mere private opinion, where any relation to external reality is somewhat lacking or doubtful. The disciples, however, believed in a resurrection with a real purchase on reality, a resurrection that left mementos behind, whether that was an empty tomb or footprints on the shore of the Sea of Tiberias.

What does the term ‘believe’ mean in the question that we are answering? What sorts of questions and dimensions of reality are open to the scientific method? What sort of claim should the scientist’s science have on his approach to other areas of his life? Should he be ‘scientific’ about his relationship to his wife, or about his assessment of a piece of music? The question that we are dealing with assumes that this particular issue of the resurrection impinges upon the scientist’s particular area of concern in a manner and to an extent that questions of love and music generally do not. While there are some who have sought to locate the issue of resurrection alongside such issues of love and music, this is not a movement that should make. In the context of the first century world resurrection was very much understood as a public, space-time event.

To put things somewhat simplistically: history deals with the unrepeatable, while science deals with the repeatable. Scientists’ objections to the resurrection often focus on the lack of analogy. However, the disciples did not believe that the resurrection was just one of many analogous events. The whole issue of worldview raises itself at this point. The worldview of the scientist is the context in which such things become believable or not.

What is the resurrection? There were many ancient beliefs about life after death. Ancient paganism contained many beliefs on these matters, but they universally ruled out the possibility of resurrection. Wright has explored this whole area at considerable length in his book The Resurrection of the Son of God. The conviction that the dead do not rise is not a product born out of scientific discovery over the past few centuries: any first century person knew this fact. Ancient Judaism believed that God was creator and that he would set his world to rights, which for many was seen to involve bodily resurrection. Christianity belongs on this map. For Christians, resurrection was not a fancy way of talking about life after death, but a way of talking about a form of life after life after death. Christians certainly believed in a form of intermediate period, and might speak of it using terms such as ‘paradise’, but these beliefs are not to be confused with its belief in resurrection.

Beliefs about life after death are generally among the most conservatively held of all beliefs in the context of any given culture. It is in such areas that people tend to revert to the positions that they were taught in childhood. For this reason, any large scale change in the convictions of a society in this area needs to be accounted for. Such a large scale shift in beliefs about life after death is precisely what we see in the case of Christianity. Excepting the later movement of Gnosticism, the early Christian Church manifests several key mutations from traditional approaches to the subject of life after death.

1. In contrast to the Judaism of the day, there was virtually no variation on the issue of the resurrection in the context of early Christianity. Christianity has no trace of an established Sadducean view in its ranks.

2. While many Jewish groups held beliefs about resurrection, it was an issue for speculation and did not lie at the core of its belief system. In the early Church, belief in the resurrection moves from the circumference of belief to its very centre and heart.

3. In contrast to Jewish groups, within which many conceptions of resurrection circulated, from the very beginning the Christian Church held a very clearly defined understanding of resurrection. For instance, the resurrection body was thought of as a transformed—‘spiritual’—body and not just as a resuscitated one.

4. For Christians, the event of ‘resurrection’ has split into two. Outside of Christianity we do not find belief in the resurrection of one man in the middle of history. Such a theological movement is without precedent.

5. The Christian approach to ‘collaborative eschatology’ (Crossan) is also without precedent. Believing that the resurrection inaugurated the eschaton, the early Church believed that it needed to implement this event, in anticipation of the final consummation.

6. Within Christianity we also see a new metaphorical use of the language of resurrection. Within the context of Judaism the language had been employed as a metaphorical way of speaking about return from exile, for instance. In the context of Christianity, this metaphorical usage of ‘resurrection’ is replaced by the use of resurrection metaphors in the context of baptism and holiness.

7. Within Christianity belief in resurrection is connected with Messianic belief in a way that it is not within Judaism. Judaism did not have a place for a Messiah that would die at the hands of the enemies of the people of God and so, naturally, did not have the place for a resurrected Messiah that Christianity did.

Indeed, without the resurrection, how do we account for Messianic belief after Christ’s death? Within other Messianic movements more or less contemporaneous with the Jesus movement, the death of the supposed Messiah tended to lead to a quest for a replacement, often a relative of the supposed Messiah who had died. Within early Christianity there was a perfect candidate for such a position following Jesus’ death—his brother James. James was renowned for his piety and was a leading figure within the early Church, but was never thought of as the Messiah.

Twentieth century revisionist historiography has occasionally suggested that belief in the resurrection arose out of the subjective internal experience of early Christian disciples. A little employment of historical imagination should destroy any plausibility that such a suggestion might initially seem to possess. Anyone offering the suggestion that Jesus was raised from the dead, based purely on an internal experience of a warmed heart or even on the basis of witnessing him in the same room, would have been subjected to ridicule. First century people were well aware, as we are, of cases of dead relatives appearing to their grieving kin following their deaths. At this point we should note the common confusion that exists between the idea of resurrection and the idea of someone dying and going to be with God. The event of the resurrection is one that is not merely a matter of subjective inner feeling, but one that has considerable claim on the external public world. The point of the resurrection is that Jesus is Lord and that death and the tyrants who use its power are defeated.

Why did these mutations occur? Only one explanation truly suffices: the disciples genuinely believed that Jesus had been bodily raised.

As many have observed, the accounts of the resurrection in the gospels do not fit snugly together. There are a number of apparently conflicting details. A recent book, Wittgenstein’s Poker, provides a wonderful example of the surface discrepancies of eye-witness testimony. In a room containing many of the most brilliant minds of the time, Wittgenstein brandished a poker at Karl Popper and then left the room. The eye-witness accounts of this event differ markedly. However, what no one doubts is that something significant happened. The same can be said of the resurrection. Surface discrepancies between narratives is quite to be expected under such circumstances.

There are four important points of commonality to be noted between the resurrection accounts of the gospels:

1. The Scriptures are almost completely silent in the resurrection narratives, in marked contrast to previous stages of the gospel narratives, where quotations from the Scriptures occur with relative frequency. This suggests that the accounts of the resurrection are very early, going back to a very early oral tradition, established before the scriptural basis had been sufficiently explored (as it had been by the time of the later account of 1 Corinthians 15).

2. The presence of women as initial witnesses of the event is not what one would expect to find in the context of the culture of the day. Once again, the account of 1 Corinthians 15 would appear to be the later one here.

3. The portrait of Jesus himself is surprising. Jesus does not, for instance, shine like a star as we might expect him to. There is such an account, but it is found in the transfiguration, not in the resurrection accounts. Jesus’ body appears normal on occasions, but in other contexts it is clear that it has been transformed. For instance, we see the disciples having difficulty in recognizing him on occasions (e.g. John 21:12). This type of account is without precedent. The writers appear to be struggling to find the language appropriate to what they have witnessed and do not appear to be driven by a clear anti-docetic, or other agenda. The body of Christ is equally at home both in heaven and in earth. It also is clearly physical.

4. The resurrection has a very much ‘this-worldly’, present age meaning. Had the stories been written later, they might well have contained references to the future resurrection of all God’s people. As they stand, the accounts include a number of clearly pre-reflective elements.

When dealing with the issue of the relationship between Easter and history we need a two-pronged approach of explanation: (a) the tomb really was empty; (b) the disciples really did encounter Jesus after his death. People were aware of the occurrence of post-mortem appearances in visions in the ancient world. Jesus’ burial was also (a fact often unrecognized) a primary burial, which would have later been followed up by storing his remains in an ossuary. Apart from sightings, the empty tomb would have not been a sufficient argument for the possibility of resurrection; in the absence of an empty tomb, nor would sightings. The only explanation sufficient to support resurrection must involve both of these things. All of the signposts point in the direction of resurrection. Denials of the resurrection often preclude on the basis of worldviews that preclude its possibility from the outset. The event of the resurrection is that which explains the future shape of the early Church.

Here the issue of a form of knowing beyond scientific and historical knowing presents itself. This new way of knowing must involve some sort of overlap with scientific and historical forms of knowing. Wright gives the example of the donation of a magnificent work of art to a college in a university. The college, lacking any place in which to display the work of art, dismantles the current college building and rebuilds it around the donated work of art. All of the things that used to make the college special are retained and, indeed, enhanced by the presence of the work of art. The negative features of the college are removed by the redesign of the college around the work of art. However—and this is the crucial point—there must be some initial reception of the work of art prior to the redesigning and rebuilding of the college around it. It is of such an overlap that we speak of with the bearing that the issue of resurrection has upon the scientist or the historian.

The resurrection poses such a challenge to the scientist or the historian, for it is the utterly characteristic, protological event of the new world that is coming to birth. It is not an absurd event occurring within the system of our own world, but an event that belongs to a new reality. No other explanation of a satisfactory character can explain the empty tomb. Nevertheless, if someone chooses to stay between the Pharaoh of scepticism and the sea of faith, they cannot be pushed any further by the historian.

God has given us minds to think. Despite the fact that the resurrection bursts the bounds of history, it also belongs within history, which is precisely why it is so disturbing and unsettling to us. In seeking to understand the resurrection, we need to situate it within a broader context. The apostle Thomas is a good example to follow here. Thomas starts out looking for a certain form of knowing—“Unless I see in his hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and put my hand into His side, I will not believe”—but ends up transcending this sort of knowing in a greater form of knowing. This is not an anti-historical or anti-scientific belief. There is epistemological weight borne by history. Faith transcends—but includes—historical and scientific conviction.

The faith by which we know, like all other true forms of knowing, is determined by the nature of its object. The fact that faith is determined by the nature of its object corresponds to the methodology adopted by science. In order to know certain things, scientists occasionally have to change their ways of seeing to a way that is more appropriate to the reality with which they are dealing. Changing paradigms involves finding a bigger picture within which to see things. Christian faith involves much the same sort of movement.

If we see an epistemology of faith in the example of Thomas, we see an epistemology of hope expressed in the work of the apostle Paul, a matter that is explored within Wright’s most recent publication, entitled—with apologies to C.S. Lewis—Surprised by Hope. Hope is a way of knowing in which new possibilities are opened up. There is also within Scripture an epistemology of love to be found, perhaps exemplified best by Peter. Wittgenstein once remarked in a profound statement: ‘It is love that believes the resurrection.’ So it was in the case of Peter.

The question of how we know things is related to the new ontology of the resurrection. The resurrection cannot be known properly in terms of our world of death, detachment and betrayal. The knowing of love must have a correlative outside the knower in the external world. This is the knowing that is needed in the world of the resurrection. ‘Objective’ historical epistemology leads us to the questions faced by Thomas, Paul and Peter: are we able and prepared to adopt a knowing of faith, hope and love? All forms of knowing are given by God; all forms of knowing can be situated within the broader setting of knowing established by faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

Slavoj Zizek responds to the claims that decoding of the genome enables us to reduce the human to the operation of chemical processes:

Here, however, one should be attentive to the formulation which repeatedly occurs in most of the reactions to the identification of the genome: “The old adage that every disease with the exception of trauma has a genetic component is really going to be true.” Although this statement is meant as the assertion of a triumph, one should nonetheless focus on the exception that it concedes, the impact of a trauma. How serious and extensive is this limitation? The first thing to bear in mind here is that “trauma” is NOT simply a shorthand term for the unpredictable chaotic wealth of environment influences, so that we are lead to the standard proposition according to which the identity of a human being results from the interaction between his/her genetic inheritance and the influence of his/her environment (“nature versus nurture”). It is also not sufficient to replace this standard proposition with the more refined notion of the “embodied mind” developed by Francisco Varela: a human being is not just the outcome of the interaction between genes and environment as the two opposed entities; s/he is rather the engaged embodied agent who, instead of “relating” to his/her environs, mediates-creates his/her life-world - a bird lives in a different environment than a fish or a man… However, “trauma” designates a shocking encounter which, precisely, DISTURBS this immersion into one’s life-world, a violent intrusion of something which doesn’t fit it. Of course, animals can also experience traumatic ruptures: say, is the ants’ universe not thrown off the rails when a human intervention totally subverts their environs? However, the difference between animals and men is crucial here: for animals, such traumatic ruptures are the exception, they are experienced as a catastrophe which ruins their way of life; for humans, on the contrary, the traumatic encounter is a universal condition, the intrusion which sets in motion the process of “becoming human.” Man is not simply overwhelmed by the impact of the traumatic encounter - as Hegel put it, s/he is able to “tarry with the negative,” to counteract its destabilizing impact by spinning out intricate symbolic cobwebs. This is the lesson of both psychoanalysis and the Jewish-Christian tradition: the specific human vocation does not rely on the development of man’s inherent potentials (on the awakening of the dormant spiritual forces OR of some genetic program); it is triggered by an external traumatic encounter, by the encounter of the Other’s desire in its impenetrability. In other words (and pace Steve Pinker), there is no inborn “language instinct”: there are, of course, genetic conditions that have to be met if a living being is to be able to speak; however, one actually starts to speak, one enters the symbolic universe, only in reacting to a traumatic jolt - and the mode of this reacting, i.e. the fact that, in order to cope with a trauma, we symbolize, is NOT “in our genes.”

From ‘No Sex, Please, We’re Post-Human!’

I can’t say that I am especially surprised by this revelation. I am, however, disappointed. Revealing such details about characters outside of the books cheapens the books themselves. The questions raised by a book should largely be left unanswered and the desire to settle all such ambiguities is characteristic of the excesses of fan fiction. It seems to me that Rowling’s willingness to pander to such speculation about characters lowers the value of her work. One of the things that I most love about a good book is the manner in which it creates a space within which our imaginations can play, the ambiguities giving us the option of reading the book in many different ways. When an author settles ambiguities like this I feel cheated. It is Rowling’s task to write and it is our task to read; I wish that she wouldn’t do our part for us.

In an important sense the books ceased to be Rowling’s on the day they were published. The printed books are the canon; we have no desire for an authoritative oral tradition interpreting the books for us. I preferred it when such issues as whether Neville Longbottom would get married or whether Dumbledore was ‘gay’ were open questions and we were left with ambiguities concerning which we could make up our own minds.

Regarding Dumbledore’s sexuality, I did wonder about it myself when reading the books. There were a few suggestive hints here and there. There is also the fact that there are clear parallels to homophobia and ‘coming out’ stories at various points in the books (and Dumbledore would hardly be the first homosexual English headmaster, would he?). For this reason the content of the revelation did not surprise me, even if the fact that Rowling would reveal such details outside of the books disappointed me.

I am convinced that homosexual practice is wrong, but I can’t say that I find it easy to identify entirely with either of the two predominant reactions that I have encountered to this revelation. On the one hand there are those who rejoice in this revelation of Dumbledore’s sexuality as a triumph for ‘tolerance’. Rowling herself spoke of her books as a ‘prolonged argument for tolerance’. This troubles me. I want the stories that I read to be driven by such things as character and plot, rather than by political or religious agendas. While I appreciate finding Christian symbolism in stories, I don’t like stories that are obviously thinly-veiled propaganda for the Christian faith. If I feel this way about propaganda for Christian faith, I will obviously feel uncomfortable with thinly-veiled propaganda for political correctness, a cause for which I have considerably less enthusiasm. By making such revelations about Dumbledore’s sexuality in the context of the claim that the books are a ‘prolonged argument for tolerance’, I fear that Dumbledore is being made into a pawn in a political game. Something of the three-dimensionality of the character is lost in all of this. If Dumbledore is going to be gay I want Dumbledore to be gay because that is who the character is, not because the author wishes to be politically correct.

In addition to this, I feel uncomfortable about the outing of sexuality in general (not just homosexuality in particular) that is brought about by such revelations. Call me old-fashioned, but I prefer the authority figures of children to be thought of in a non-sexual way. I don’t want to be told that Dumbledore or McGonagall are straight or gay. Undoubtedly we are sexual beings, but our sexuality belongs, I believe, within bounds. There are parts of life that should be non-sexualized. This is part of what concerns me about many of the things associated with the ‘outing’ or ‘coming out’ of homosexuals. By defining the person too much in terms of their sexuality, sexuality in general is brought out of the contexts in which it belongs and starts to invade every area of life. I don’t like being called ‘heterosexual’ for a host of reasons, but one of these reasons is that, although I do possess a sexual nature, it is not something that I believe belongs in most contexts of discourse.

The outing of Dumbledore’s sexuality (no less than if we were told that McGonagall is ‘straight’ — and there is an important difference between knowing these things and being told them) risks sexualizing relationships that shouldn’t be sexualized, such as Dumbledore’s relationship with Harry, the teenager that he has long private conversations with and a special concern for. I also believe that this ‘outing’ of Dumbledore goes against the character himself. Although I can imagine a Dumbledore with feelings for Grindelwald, I cannot imagine a Dumbledore who would say: ‘I am gay’. While Dumbledore undoubtedly has a sexual nature, this sexual nature is generally quite marginal to the character as we encounter him in the books (in fact, there is still no claim — to my knowledge — that he ever engaged in homosexual activity).

On the other hand, there is the reaction of those who feel that the character of Dumbledore is now defiled. I also find it hard to identify with this reaction and fear that there may be an element of homophobia driving it. Although Rowling may have ‘outed’ him, Dumbledore did not come out about his sexuality in the books. In the books the character of Dumbledore is defined by far, far more than his sexuality. He comes across as a very human and a very noble person. As such a person, he is the sort of person who might truly wrestle with the complexities of human sexuality, without reducing himself to being defined by or purely driven by this sexuality. In fact, the Dumbledore that we encounter in the Harry Potter canon seems to be chaste and celibate. I see no reason why such a character should not appear in a book written for teens. There are many virtuous people who have struggled with homoerotic desire. Is a person defiled more than any other person simply because they have sinful desires? Is there any of us who doesn’t have sinful desires?

I am quite happy to think in terms of a Dumbledore who has homoerotic desires but refuses to be defined by them. In fact, we might end up with an even higher view of Dumbledore as we see his willingness to deny his desires for the sake of what is right (defeating the dark wizard). We might also begin to appreciate how Dumbledore’s personal struggle with such ‘abnormal’ desires enables him to become an even greater person than he would have been otherwise. It might be a good explanation for why Dumbledore is so attuned to the condition and so concerned for the wellbeing of the marginalized.

One of the strengths of Rowling’s characterization in the HP series is that she did not write ideal characters, but human ones. She presents us with a world in which the battle between good and evil occurs within each one of us and a world in which we must overcome certain desires, vices, character flaws and prejudices within our own selves. It is through the battle with our own selves that true and lasting character is formed. It is this account of human character and nature that enables us to understand how we might not allow ourselves to be defined by our desires (even, to some extent, our good desires), but might gain mastery over them. In such a world it is often the persons who have to wrestle most with the misleading desires of their own natures who emerge as the true people of virtue and character, rather than those who were so free from misdirected desire that they never had to wrestle with themselves in the first place.

As I believe that homoerotic desire is misdirected desire I do not believe that it should be portrayed as a good thing when we allow this desire to drive us. For this reason the idea of a ‘gay and proud’ Dumbledore saddens me. People who struggle with homoerotic desire are, I believe, struggling with a particular form of the compromised nature that afflicts us all as fallen human beings. I believe that true liberation for human beings with compromised natures (i.e. all of us) cannot be found in mere acceptance of the validity of our misdirected desires, but in the power to overcome our compromised natures, even though the struggle may never end here on earth. This is why any Christian refusal to justify homoerotic desire must be driven by the love for people made in God’s image that refuses to ‘tolerate’ these desires that lead to their being enslaved. How sad it is that Christians are often known for their homophobia, rather than for their strong affirmation of the one who struggles with homoerotic desire as a person made in the image of God, and for a love that refuses to stand idly by and see others being led astray by misdirected desires. For this reason I would be disappointed with a Dumbledore who was proud of his homoerotic desire, even though I like the idea of a Dumbledore who is able to recognize homosexual desire as part of his nature, but is enabled to wrestle with his nature in various ways. If anything, such a Dumbledore is more like the rest of us.

The following are some slightly edited comments that I made on another blog earlier today:

From time to time I hear people lamenting the current state of evangelicalism and particularly of the loss of an appreciation for preaching. I couldn’t agree more that there is a lot of bad preaching around. Fortunately, I don’t have to sit under such preaching too often, but the fruits of it are not hard to see.

However, although I see a big problem, I am not at all convinced that traditional evangelical preaching is the answer (perhaps people would appreciate preaching more if we only had it once a month, like the Lord’s Supper…). I believe that there are deep problems with many of the traditional paradigms for preaching in evangelicalism and elsewhere. Preaching has become the event of the weekly gathered worship of the Church, which seems to me to be a serious departure from the biblical pattern. Even when Paul speaks until midnight at Troas, the Eucharist is spoken of as the reason for gathering (Acts 20:7). In the context of the weekly gathered worship of the Church, preaching should essentially be ‘tabletalk’.

While the Scriptures certainly teach about the importance of preaching, they also say a lot about aspects of the service that evangelicals tend to downplay as a result of their emphasis on preaching. The Scripture says a lot more about the institution of the Eucharist than it does about Christ’s institution of the Sermon as an essential element of gathered worship.

Such a focus on preaching has created new concepts of the Church. The Church becomes defined primarily around ideas and ever more sharply defined theological positions, rather than around community, which is something that the Eucharist retains the centrality of. The Church has also become organized more and more around one man’s activity (and, as James Jordan comments, that man is not Jesus Christ). Evangelical congregations are often more passive in gathered worship than medieval ones were and this is a serious problem. The service becomes something that the preacher does, rather than the shared activity of the body of Christ.

Worship becomes a mere preface and epilogue to preaching. Scripture-rich liturgies are abandoned and in some churches the congregation only open their mouths for the singing. Pastors do not prepare the liturgy. The liturgy is an after-thought, hastily thrown together, while most of their effort is put into crafting the rhetorical masterpiece which is the Sermon.

The pastor becomes increasingly defined by his role as the ‘preacher’. Rather than letting the father-like leadership that the pastor exercises over the congregation condition our understanding of the role and practice of preaching, other dimensions of the pastor’s role have been forgotten as his preaching becomes all-important. In actual fact I am not at all sure that preaching is the most important task committed to the pastor. One does not have to look far in evangelicalism to find good examples of the way in which preaching can eclipse all else, reducing churches to preaching centres. Far from building up the Church, such preaching undermines it.

Scripture reading in the service is often reduced to the reading for the sermon. Contrast this with the Eastern Orthodox liturgy. For instance, Robert Letham lists the readings in the EO liturgy for Good Friday — John 13:31-18:1; John 18:1-28; Matthew 26:57-75; John 18:28-19:16; Matthew 27:3-32; Mark 15:16-32; Matthew 27:33-54; Luke 23:32-49; John 19:25-37; Mark 15:43-47; John 19:38-42; Matthew 27:62-66 and, quite literally, these are just starters. There are probably a couple of dozen more Scripture readings in addition to those already mentioned.

This brings to light one of the deepest problems with preaching as understood and practiced within conservative evangelicalism. This problem is the priority that it tends to give to our own words in worship, over God’s words. Our words gradually squeeze out God’s words. Rather than letting preaching be the handmaid of God’s Word, we will reduce the Scripture readings far sooner than we will cut down the length of the sermon.

The responsive and receptive character of Christian worship becomes downplayed and our words become less and less controlled by God’s Word. The Scripture content of the liturgy and prayers plummets, to be replaced by evangelical clichés. The texts for sermons become ever shorter. Some evangelical preachers pride themselves on preaching huge sermons on a couple of words in a text. This often has the effect of leaving preaching largely uncontrolled by the Scriptures. For many sermons the ‘text’ is merely a pretext or springboard to explore a dimension of systematic theology or the like.

Evangelical worship is full of the noise of our own voices. We continually speak at God but don’t take the necessary time to attend to and to digest what He might be saying to us. Having more times of silent response to readings of the Word of God, for instance, would be a huge step in the right direction, as would having more lengthy readings that are not preached on (throwing out the technology that eclipses the simplicity of worship would also be helpful). Sometimes we need to resist the urge to continually rush to say what the Scriptures mean and just allow them to work on us, practicing the art of listening to Scripture together (which means that we do NOT read along in our own Bibles). Contemporary evangelical worship, with all of its technological bells and whistles, provides us with dozens of distractions from the simplicity of the Word of God and from the terrifying silence that might actually lead to personal or theological epiphanies.

Preaching has come to be understood as a great rhetorical event. I believe that significant changes in popular evangelical preaching styles would have to take place in order to bring them more in line with Scripture. Calm Scriptural exposition should replace many of the impassioned rhetorical displays that one hears from evangelical pulpits (rhetorical displays that often disguise a depressing lack of content). The pastor should teach the congregation as a father teaches his children. This means that the ideal position is sitting, not standing, and that shouting and the raising of voice for rhetorical effect is generally unnecessary.

The pastor should also remember that he is like a father teaching children, something that many evangelical preachers forget. If unbelievers attend worship they are eavesdroppers; the gathered worship of the Church is not for their benefit, but is about the relationship between God and His people. The fact that preaching in the Church is for children means that preaching is for the converted. Sin and unbelief are still addressed, but they are addressed as issues in the lives of the children of God — the baptized.

The oratory model of preaching tends to place orator and audience at different poles. The model presumes an initial distance between orator and audience that needs to be overcome by rhetoric. Standing behind the lectern, the orator tries to win over his audience with clever rhetoric and artificially exaggerated emotion. Preaching becomes drama; preaching becomes an ‘act’ in which the preacher adopts an affected style of speech.

The pastor should address the congregation as one who already has a relationship with them. The father or the pastor should not have to ‘win over’ their hearers in the way that the orator does. They ‘win over’ their hearers differently, by powerful truths plainly and lovingly spoken and by teaching with a gracious authority. The pastor should teach the congregation entrusted to him much as Jesus taught His disciples. He speaks naturally to his hearers and does not employ an affected style. The passion and emotion that arise are natural and not exaggerated or affected.

Many of the problems of emotionalism and rationalism in evangelical circles arise from distorted models of preaching. If pastors were more concerned with plainly addressing the truths of the gospel to the consciences of the saints in the context of the gathered ‘family meal’ of the Eucharist I suspect that we would not have the same problem with the rationalism and intellectualism that arises from the rather silly idea that the intellect is primary, for instance.

The proper mode of Baptism is an issue that is much debated in the Church. While I don’t believe that most of these debates have any bearing on the validity of the sacrament, this does not mean that the debates are unimportant. Unlike many, I am not sure that etymology can help us that much in answering this question. I am not at all convinced by the Baptist arguments that full submersion is necessarily in view wherever the term ‘baptism’ is used. The ‘baptisms’ of the OT (cf. Hebrews 9:10) were not usually by full submersion, but were generally by partial dipping, pouring, sprinkling and bathing, etc. Generally a ‘baptism’ is a washing, without clearly stipulating the precise mode. Just as I can completely bathe my body in water without submersing my whole body in water, so the full body washings of the OT seldom if ever entail the submersion of the whole body.

In his book, The Priesthood of the Plebs, Peter Leithart has argued that the priestly baptism of Exodus 40:12-15 provides background that the NT draws upon when speaking about Christian Baptism (e.g. Luke 3:21-23; Galatians 3:27; Hebrews 10:19-22). However, this Baptism was clearly not by submersion, being performed at the ‘door of the tabernacle of meeting’ (Exodus 40:12). There was no water to go down into there, but there was the water of the raised bronze laver which would presumably have been sprinkled or poured on them for their initiation rite and would have been used to wash their hands and feet with thereafter (Exodus 30:17-21; 40:30-32). This provides possible background for John 13:10 — God bathes us in Baptism, and after Baptism He only needs to wash our feet and hands.

I believe that, when the NT speaks about Baptism, it does generally have a full body washing in view (Hebrews 10:22), rather than just a few drops of water on the forehead. Thus far I stand with the Baptists. However, it is not immediately clear that this full body washing was necessarily one of full body submersion, nor do I believe that full body washing precludes sprinkling. I am convinced that when the Bible speaks about ’sprinkling’ it refers to a far more liberal administration of water than a couple of drops: Scriptural ’sprinkling’ is more like a raining down of water from above, wetting the whole body. Nebuchadnezzar was ‘wet (bapto LXX) with the dew of heaven’ and the baptizand should be wet with the water of Baptism in much the same way. Sprinkling is a very biblical mode of Baptism, but it really should be a very liberal sprinkling to maintain the biblical symbolism. Water is poured over the head of the baptizand in much the same way as the clouds pour out the blessing of rain. The heavens are opened and the whole body is drenched with the baptismal rains.

On a number of occasions in the NT (e.g. Acts 10:47; 16:33) it seems most likely that water was brought to the baptizand and poured over him, rather than the baptizand being brought to a body of water deep enough to submerge himself in. When the NT clearly speaks of a mode of washing in connection with Baptism, it is of the Spirit’s being ‘poured out’ onto the Church on the Day of Pentecost (Acts 1:5; 2:17-18, 33; 10:44-45). In Titus 3:5-6 we see a connection between our washing of regeneration (i.e. Baptism) and the ‘pouring out’ of the Spirit.

If the point of a ‘baptism’ is merely the cleansing of the whole body with water then there are a number of different modes by which such a result could be achieved — pouring, liberal sprinkling, full submersion, the manual application of water to the body with a flannel, etc. Full submersion is probably not actually the most natural way in which to cleanse the whole body. When I wash my whole body, I usually do it by standing under a shower, which liberally sprinkles my whole body with water. On other occasions I might partially submerge myself in a bath and pour water over the upper half of my body and my head. When I do completely submerge my body in water it is not usually for the purpose of washing.

However, many Baptists (and some others) argue that the point of Baptism is not merely whole body washing, but whole body submersion. In support of their understanding they usually appeal to the meaning of the verb baptizo, which fails, to my mind, to prove their position. They also often fail to do justice to the symbolic connection between Baptism and the reception of the Spirit, and the fact that the gift of the Spirit is almost everywhere spoken of in terms of the modes of sprinkling or pouring (Isaiah 44:3; Ezekiel 36:25; 39:29; Joel 2:28-29; Zechariah 12:10; Acts 2:33; 10:44-45; Titus 3:5-6).

The appeal to the imagery of burial with Christ in Romans 6:3-6, upon which many Baptist arguments for the proper mode of Baptism rest is also problematic. Christ was laid in a tomb; He was not lowered into a grave. Besides, submerging the body in water does not look remotely like the act of laying a body on a slab in a tomb (or lowering a body into a tomb for that matter). If this imagery is fundamental to Baptism then it is surprising that water Baptism is the rite that Christ instituted, rather than some variety of symbolic burial rite. Some argue that full submersion is Baptism ‘in the likeness of [Christ's] death’ (Romans 6:5). The problem with all such arguments is that they draw attention to the visual mode of Baptism, where the focus of the text of Romans 6 is elsewhere: on the union with Christ in His death that Baptism effects. The point of verse 5 is that if we have been united to the form of — ‘conformed to’ — Christ’s death, we can also expect to be united to the the form of — ‘conformed to’ — His resurrection (cf. Philippians 3:10-11). The point throughout is not that Baptism looks like burial, but that it really effects a union with Christ in His death.

When thinking about the proper mode of Baptism I think that most approaches leave much to be desired. Little attention is given to the rich biblical theology that should inform our doctrine of Baptism. If we are to begin to understand the meaning of and appropriate practice of Baptism we really have to do better than founding our arguments upon some rather wooden treatments of etymology and some tenuous readings of certain biblical prooftexts. Lest my Baptist readers think that I am trying to get at them, I will say in their favour that they have made an attempt to think seriously about the appropriate mode of Baptism, which is exactly what we ought to do. Furthermore, many Baptist approaches have a lot more biblical weight to them (as we shall soon see). The same cannot be said of most paedobaptists, for whom arguments about the mode of Baptism have more to do with maintaining the status quo, rather than with taking seriously the importance of biblical symbolism. At least Baptists do not treat the symbolism of the rite with such casual indifference.

There are two dimensions to the water symbolism in Baptism, corresponding to the two symbolic bodies of water in Genesis 1: the waters below and the waters above, the chaotic waters of the abyss and the heavenly waters. The waters below can represent death (e.g. Psalm 18:4-5; 42:7; 69:1-2, 14-15; Isaiah 43:2; Jonah 2), the Gentile nations, etc. In Genesis 1 God brings up the land out from the sea and, in much the same way, God brings up his people out from the (Red) Sea (Isaiah 63:11; cf. Hebrews 13:20).

The world is framed and formed by bodies of water (2 Peter 3:5). When the world is destroyed it returns to its basic state of undivided chaotic waters (Genesis 7; 2 Peter 3:6; cf. Genesis 1:2). We see the same imagery being appealed to when the Gentile nations (the seas) completely flood the land of Israel.

New worlds are formed by the division of waters, by deliverance through waters, etc. Examples of such world-forming events include the initial division of the two bodies of water in Genesis 1:6-8 and the bringing of the dry land up from the sea in 1:9-10, the deliverance of Noah through the waters of the Great Flood (1 Peter 3:20-21), the deliverance of Moses through the waters of the Nile, the bringing of Israel through the Red Sea and the Jordan, and John the Baptist’s baptism in the Jordan. To be brought through or out of the waters is to be rescued through or from death.

It seems to me that it is the ‘coming out of’ or being ‘brought through’ the water that is the most significant aspect of our relationship to the waters below. Pharaoh and the evil men in the time of Noah all went under the water, but only the righteous were brought ‘through’ or ‘out of’ the water. Both the Ark and the Red Sea Crossing are types of NT Baptism (1 Corinthians 10:1-2; 1 Peter 3:20-21). The righteous pass through the waters (Psalm 66:6) without being ultimately overwhelmed.

This is the important dimension of the symbolism that Baptists and others retain with their practice of full submersion. In full submersion we undergo a watery trial, going down into the symbolic realm of death, a realm from which we are then brought out in ‘resurrection’, sharing in the ‘baptism’ that Christ underwent in His death (Luke 12:50). In bringing Gentiles out of the waters God is also creating something new, ‘calling those things which do not exist as though they did’, overcoming the formlessness and emptiness of the world by establishing a new kingdom.

However, full submersionists can easily miss the other dimension of the symbolism that the NT draws our attention to. The other dimension of the symbolism is that God brings us through the firmament and into his heavenly realm. The waters from above are the waters of blessing. As these waters rain down upon us — or we pass through them — we have access to God’s very presence (Hebrews 10:19-22). The baptismal rain of the Spirit is the dimension of the symbolism that many paedobaptist churches have maintained. Post-Pentecost, this dimension of the symbolism is very important.

So there are two movements: we come up out of the water and the Spirit comes down upon us. We see this in Christ’s Baptism: He comes out of the water and the Spirit descends on Him like a dove. The connection between this and the account of Genesis 8:1-12 is significant, especially considering the fact that the NT connects the ark and Baptism in 1 Peter 3:20-21. The dove of the Spirit descends upon that which has come out of the water. Perhaps the same thing is in view in 1 Corinthians 10:1-2 — there is a ‘bringing through’ or ‘bringing out of’ (Moses pre-capitulates the experience of Israel in Exodus 14 in Exodus 2:10) and then a coming ‘under’ the cloud (which represents the Spirit). Isaiah 63:11 also manifests this pattern to some extent.

The waters above are the waters of blessing. They are the waters of the cloud with the rainbow of God’s promise to bless and never to utterly destroy (Genesis 9:11-17). They are the waters of the cloud that lead the people of God to the Promised Land (Exodus 13:21-22; cf. Romans 8:14). They are the healing waters that rain down in blessing on the people of God (see Joel 2:23, which is connected with the promise of the Spirit in Joel 2:27-28, a passage alluded to in Peter’s Pentecost sermon in Acts 2). They are the waters of the cloud through which we ascend to sit with Christ at God’s right hand (Ephesians 2:6; cf. Acts 1:9). They are the waters of the Spirit that descend upon the Church on the Day of Pentecost.

Ideally, Baptism should retain both dimensions of this symbolism. Eastern Orthodox Baptism (which follows a pattern not too dissimilar to that of Exodus 40) does it by having chrismation as part of the baptismal rite, following triple immersion in the divine name (the rite is thus called ‘Baptism’ by synecdoche, much as the Eucharist can be referred to as the ‘breaking of bread’). The symbolism could also be retained in other ways, for instance by having full or partial submersion coupled with the pouring or sprinkling of water from above.

Whatever mode we adopt, the point is that Baptism brings us through the realm of condemnation and death and washes us with the healing rain of the Spirit. In the waters of Baptism an old creation dies. The old Pharaoh is drowned and our flesh, once ravaged by the leprosy of sin, is cleansed as we become like newborn children (cf. 2 Kings 5:14). The old world perishes and we become new creations, created out of the waters, standing in the waters below and receiving the waters from above. We are those who have been brought through the waters into the Promised Land, under the cloud of God’s guidance, promise and blessing. As Marilynne Robinson observed, ‘water was made primarily for blessing, and only secondarily for growing vegetables and doing the wash.’ It is in the event of Baptism that this truth is seen most clearly.

This post was sabotaged…

I returned from Myanmar yesterday afternoon. I go back to university on Saturday. This blog should become active again over the next couple of weeks.

Many Christians have claimed that the Harry Potter books are dangerous, encouraging children to get involved in witchcraft. We are called to exercise discernment and reject such literature completely. It is interesting to observe how much popular children’s literature escapes such judgment, for instance literature that presents disfunctional relationships between children and parents and broken families as the norm and encourages the reader to identify and empathize with promiscuous and morally twisted characters. It is quite heartening to observe just how robust the family values put forward in the Harry Potter books are. Marriage, faithful relationships and strong relationships between children and their elders are presented as the norm. Given that these are books written by a former single mother in a society where countless families are broken and disfunctional, this fact probably deserves more attention than it has generally received (one also wonders whether Rowling has her own experience in mind when she has Harry speak some strong words to a particular character about marital commitment in book 7).

The contrast between Harry Potter and the messages that many popular TV shows, movies and books are giving young people about relationships is quite startling. The fact that many Christian parents permit their children to sit in front of TV shows and films that subtly but determinedly corrupt morals and expect their children to be mature enough to deal with such influences whilst fearing that Harry Potter will lead them to dabble in the occult is quite bizarre.

When it comes to the accusation of witchcraft, I actually believe that Rowling can help us arrive at a more Christian view of witchcraft. The world that Rowling writes of is a world of Weasleys’ Wizard Wheezes, self-shuffling cards, flying cars, wands hidden in umbrellas, bat bogey hexes, Whomping Willows, Quidditch, owls who deliver the mail, wizards who wear the most ridiculous garments to pass themselves off as Muggles, and the like. It is a delightfully humourous and playful portrayal of a magical world. It is not intended to be taken seriously. The fact that many Christians do take it seriously is a sign that something is badly wrong with us.

One of my favourite creatures found in Harry Potter’s world is the Boggart.

‘Now, then,’ said Lupin, beckoning the class toward the end of the room, where there was nothing but an old wardrobe where the teachers kept their spare robes. As Professor Lupin went to stand next to it, the wardrobe gave a sudden wobble, banging off the wall.

‘Nothing to worry about,’ said Professor Lupin calmly because a few people had jumped backward in alarm. ‘There’s a Boggart in there.’

Most people seemed to feel that this was something to worry about. Neville gave Professor Lupin a look of pure terror, and Seamus Finnigan eyed the now rattling doorknob apprehensively.

‘Boggarts like dark, enclosed spaces,’ said Professor Lupin. ‘Wardrobes, the gap beneath beds, the cupboards under sinks — I’ve even met one that had lodged itself in a grandfather clock. This one moved in yesterday afternoon, and I asked the headmaster if the staff would leave it to give my third years some practice.

‘So, the first question we must ask ourselves is, what is a Boggart?’

Hermione put up her hand.

‘It’s a shape-shifter,’ she said. ‘It can take the shape of whatever it thinks will frighten us most.’

‘Couldn’t have put it better myself,’ said Professor Lupin, and Hermione glowed. ‘So the Boggart sitting in the darkness within has not yet assumed a form. He does not yet know what will frighten the person on the other side of the door. Nobody knows what a Boggart looks like when he is alone, but when I let him out, he will immediately become whatever each of us most fears.’

‘This means,’ said Professor Lupin, choosing to ignore Neville’s small sputter of terror, ‘that we have a huge advantage over the Boggart before we begin. Have you spotted it, Harry?’

Trying to answer a question with Hermione next to him, bobbing up and down on the balls of her feet with her hand in the air, was very off-putting, but Harry had a go.

‘Er — because there are so many of us, it won’t know what shape it should be?’

‘Precisely,’ said Professor Lupin, and Hermione put her hand down, looking a little disappointed. ‘It’s always best to have company when you’re dealing with a boggart. He becomes confused. Which should he become, a headless corpse or a flesh-eating slug? I once saw a Boggart make that very mistake — tried to frighten two people at once and turned himself into half a slug. Not remotely frightening.

‘The charm that repels a Boggart is simple, yet it requires force of mind. You see, the thing that really finishes a Boggart is laughter. What you need to do is force it to assume a shape that you find amusing.

‘We will practice the charm without wands first. After me, please … riddikulus!’

The pre-Christian world was full of dark, enclosed spaces for Boggarts to hide. People were plagued and tyrannized by fear, held in its bondage. Satan played with people’s imaginations, holding them in bondage as much (if not far more) by means of the fear within as by external demonic forces without. One of the effects of the gospel was to flood the world with light, driving the Boggarts out from their darkened lairs.

In the light of the gospel we can, like Harry and his classmates, learn to perform the riddikulus charm on our demonically-induced fears. After the gospel has taken effect we can mock things that once terrified us. This is one of the purposes of the celebration of Halloween. The gospel reveals that much of the fear that Satan excited in men prior to the advent of Christ resulted merely from the exaggerated shadows that he cast in the darkness. Now that light has come the shadows are removed and Satan is reduced to a far less terrifying stature. We can begin to laugh at the shapes that we once saw in the shadows.

Whilst there are undoubtedly evil forces at work in our world — Harry’s world contains Dementors and Death Eaters, not just Boggarts — we need to learn that many of the terrors that haunt us are merely products of our fearful imaginations. Satan loves to have the huge shadows that he tries to cast taken seriously. We will only truly defeat him when we learn to laugh at the shadows, walking through death’s shade while fearing no evil.

Good Christian fiction writers can help us to do this. Christian authors can and should tell stories of Greek and Norse gods, of dragons, giants, goblins, faeries, of witches on broomsticks, of pixies, gnomes, elves and dwarves. These stories are the chains in which defeated Boggarts are paraded in triumph before the Risen Christ. J.K. Rowling, by presenting us with a delightfully exaggerated magical world, has robbed real witchcraft of power, performing the riddikulus charm on many of its Boggarts. Much of the power of witchcraft derives from the huge aura that it builds up around itself and the irrational fears that it creates in us. Once these irrational fears and superstitions have been exorcized by humourous light fiction, witchcraft looks considerably less threatening (even though it never ceases to be real).

Many Christians operate in terms of a view of the world that is driven by fear and superstition. There is a terrible fascination with the morbid and the dangerous; such people see demons and witchcraft everywhere. The wonderful thing is that Christ died to set us free from such a paranoid fear of the demonic realm. There is witchcraft in our world and it is evil and dangerous and Christians should openly and strongly resist it. However, it is by no means as all-pervasive as some fevered imaginations might suggest.

Many of those who object to Rowling’s works are those who are still terrified by Boggarts. They continue in panic, hysteria and conspiracy theory-driven witchhunts. Thankfully, orthodox Christians have historically encouraged far greater scepticism towards such exaggerated myths of occult practices. This strong Christian scepticism towards many of the claims made for the occult has encouraged the rise of science and a more rational society. It is no accident that the sciences seldom prosper in superstitious societies. It is only as the old witch-hunts and superstitions end that our clearer vision enables us to come to a more scientific understanding of our world. This is one of the chief ways in which the clearer light of the gospel paves the way for science.

Occult practices undoubtedly exist, but viewed through eyes freed from fear and superstition through Christ’s victory we see a world where many of our former fears are revealed as mere creations of our own imaginations. Works like Harry Potter are a good way to start innoculating ourselves and our children against such fears.

A number of people have asked me about the reason for my dramatically decreased blogging output. There are a number of reasons. I have lacked any great desire to blog for weeks now. Rather than blog merely out of a sense of obligation I have put my blogging to one side and only blogged when I have felt like doing so. I needed to have some time away from blogging over the last month or two and the rest did me good. However, I don’t expect that I will feel inclined to resume regular service for the next few months at least. Guest posts are still welcome, though, if any are interested in submitting material on the subject of the atonement.

In September I will be spending two and a half weeks in South East Asia, where I have to deliver over 40 hours’ worth of lectures on the subject of Christian Ethics. I only discovered that I would be speaking so much a couple of weeks ago. Since then I have spent far more time working for my father’s business than I have in preparation. I have only read sections of a few books on the subject and nothing more. I have a vague idea of how I will approach the subject, but little more. I have never had to prepare anything like this before and only have a month in which to do so. I am the best man at a wedding this Saturday, which considerably limits my preparation time this week. I also have two Sundays in the next month when I will be preaching at churches in the locality, while the pastors are on holiday, not to mention occasional work for my father’s business.

I would greatly value people’s prayers and any ideas and recommendations from those who have done this sort of thing before. This is really a matter of being thrown in at the deep end for me and I am not at all sure that I am equipped for it. Please pray that I will have motivation, direction and clarity in my studies and preparation. Please also pray that the talks, when I deliver them, will be of blessing to the hearers.

I finished reading Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows last night. What a superb book! The dénouement was everything that I could have hoped for and more, wrapping up the whole series beautifully. It becomes apparent that Rowling had this ending clearly in her sights from the very start of the first book. Also, if there are any doubts in anyone’s mind that Rowling self-consciously writes as a Christian, this book should answer them. I can’t wait until the Christian Harry Potter experts start to comment on this book. If you have not yet read the book, go and do so right away! If you have, add Hogwarts Professor and Sword of Gryffindor to your feed aggregator and follow their post-book discussions. They should be very interesting. Even when you have already read the books, I have no doubt that these bloggers will bring to your attention the inner dynamics of the series and help you to appreciate many more subtle details that you might have missed.

[BEWARE: the comments of this post may contain spoilers!!]

Reformed Christians have traditionally tended to operate in terms of the primacy of the intellect. Even when we deny that we are doing so, our worship and the message that we preach are primarily directed at the mind. Much of our teaching and evangelism operates on the assumption that reality is primarily grasped with the mind. I have long regarded such assumptions and the forms of pedagogy that have resulted from it as fundamentally misguided.

If we are going to talk about the ‘primacy’ of anything in man’s grasping of his world, let us speak of the primacy of the imagination. The very act of perceiving our world necessarily involves the imagination. There is no such thing as mere perception. We do not merely ‘see’ our world; every act of perception is an act of ‘seeing as’. The imagination is that which governs our ‘seeing as’. The facts that the mind deals with are never ‘brute facts’, but facts that result from the imagination’s engagement with the world. The ‘reality’ that the mind thinks about is a reality that has already been processed by the imagination in the act of perception. The imagination provides the foundation upon which the mind and will build.

The imagination provides us with the lenses through which we view the world. Whether we are aware of its activity or not, it acts nonetheless. Those who underestimate the role played by the imagination will become its prisoners. People with incredibly sharp minds, trapped within a false picture and story of the world will often never get out, just digging themselves deeper into the hole that they are in. All of their thinking merely tightens their grip on a false perception of reality. There are few people more frustrating to debate with; not only are they often incredibly arrogant in their conviction that they are right and everyone else is wrong, they are also unable to understand how anyone could really see things differently.

The great leaps in thought almost always result from the activity of the imagination. Many of us have experienced paradigm shifts in our own thinking. Such shifts are achieved by the imagination, enabling us to see everything in a new way. Our rational faculty then tightens our new grip on our reality. Training the imagination is very important if we are to arrive at a deeper apprehension of God’s truth. A trained imagination is better able to purposefully and consciously attempt to re-imagine the world. Those with a trained imagination will be better equipped to imaginatively see the world through the eyes of others and will be better able to come to an understanding of and overcome the limitations of their own vision. The ability to consciously re-imagine our world, to see things differently, is one of the most important abilities that we can develop.

The lack of an appreciation of the essential role played by the imagination and the lack of any training for the imagination seriously weakens theology. Even the sharpest mind can be of very limited use in the absence of a trained imagination. Mere logical consistency seldom solves much, as logic generally operates within the reality that the imagination grants us. Logic merely strengthens or slightly corrects our grip on a particular way of viewing the world; by itself it does not enable us to do what the imagination permits us to do: change our way of viewing completely.

By working in terms of an anthropology that presumes the primacy of the intellect, Reformed Christians have often failed to develop and harness the power of the imagination. We talk a lot about ‘worldviews’, but worldviews are generally understood in very ideological terms. A ‘worldview’ is seen as a set of propositions or a conceptual construct that shapes the way that we view reality. However, such ideological grids do not play anywhere near as much of a role in our vision of reality as Reformed people generally presume. Mere reflection on our day to day lives should expose the weakness of the notion that our engagement with reality is primarily mediated by ideological systems.

In reality, ideological systems only play a relatively limited role in our engagement with, and way of seeing reality. By thinking that practically everything can be reduced to thinking, we have made a huge error. The way that we see and engage with reality has far more to do with practices that we engage in unreflectively, the stories that we live in terms of, the symbols that are significant to us, the technologies that we use, the cultural artefacts that we produce, the communities that we belong to, the questions that we ask, etc. Our ‘worldview’ is, thus, a matter as broad as culture itself and is quite irreducible to mere ideology.

By failing to appreciate this, Reformed churches have often tended to produce a lot of ideologues with stunted imaginations and little in the way of a distinct culture. In addressing their message to the mind and failing to address the imagination, they have left Christians dangerously ill-equipped to engage with the world as Christians. In other Church traditions a rich liturgy, sacramental form of worship, use of the Church calendar and regular readings from the Gospels and OT narratives powerfully form people’s imaginations. Reformed Christians lack almost all of these things.

The Reformed faith centres on slogans (e.g. justification by faith alone, TULIP, the solas, etc.), rather than stories. We focus on a doctrine of justification, often at expense of a story of justification. Our worship does not convey a vision of the world, or even a powerful narrative so much as a mere disembodied set of ideas. Practically every part of Reformed worship is addressed to the mind. Even the sacraments are treated as if they were pictures of ideas. When the Eucharist is celebrated, great effort is often expended to ensure that people know what the rite means and, more importantly, what it doesn’t mean. In most Reformed churches the congregant doesn’t participate much with their body. There is no kneeling, no kiss of peace, no walking, etc. The body is treated as if it were primarily a mind-container.

There is also little engagement with the narrative of Scripture. Bible readings are frequently subordinated to the sermon. The narrative is there to be analyzed from without. We also tend to downplay the biblical narrative in favour of the doctrines of the epistles, abstracting the latter from the former. Even when we do treat the narrative parts of Scripture we tend to focus on extracting the important ideas or moral lessons from the narrative. Seldom do we really encounter the narrative as narrative. In other parts of the Church the Church calendar, for instance, encourages people to read the story of Scripture from within. The sort of relationship that one develops with the narrative of Scripture in a liturgical church is very different from the sort of relationship that one develops in the ideological church, where everything is subordinated to preaching. In the latter type of church the narrative of Scripture tends to become obscured pretty quickly and the idea that the Scriptures narrate a world for us to inhabit seems quite bizarre.

The reason why all of this is so significant is due to the fact that liturgy, ritual and the narrative of Scripture are primarily directed, not to the mind, but to the imagination. Mark Searle expresses the purpose of liturgy and ritual well:

By putting us through the same paces over and over again, ritual rehearses us in certain kinds of interaction over and over again, until the ego finally gives up its phrenetic desire to be in charge and lets the Spirit take over. The repetitiousness of the liturgy is something many would like to avoid; but this would be a profound mistake. It is not entertainment, or exposure to new ideas. It is rather a rehearsal of attitudes, a repeated befriending of images and symbols, so that they penetrate more and more deeply into our inner self and make us, or remake us, in their own image.

Kneeling, for example, is not an expression of our humanity: it is more an invitation to discover what reality looks like when we put ourselves in that position. The texts of Scripture and the images of the liturgy are not didactic messages wrapped up in some decorative covering which can be thrown away when the content is extracted. They are images and sets of images to be toyed with, befriended, rubbed over and over again, until, gradually and sporadically, they yield flashes of insight and encounter with the “Reality” of which they sing. Their purpose is not to give rise to thought (at least, not immediately), but to mediate encounter. As Heidegger said in another context: “The point is not to listen to a series of propositions, but to follow the movement of showing.”

So there is a discipline of listening, looking, and gesturing to be learnt: ways of standing, touching, receiving, holding, embracing, eating, and drinking which recognize these activities as significant and which enable us to perform them in such a way that we are open to the meaning (the res) which they mediate.

Where such a liturgy is absent, we should not be surprised to find that a Christian imagination is also lacking.

As a result of our neglect of the imagination, when it comes to the arts, I think that Reformed Christians are in real danger of seriously underestimating their significance. The most powerful voices in any society are those prophetic voices that present us with new ways of viewing our world. The prophet or visionary presents people with a vision or picture of the world and people begin to live in terms of this new picture. The prophet tells stories and paints pictures, stories and pictures that reshape people’s ways of seeing their reality. This was one of the purposes of Jesus’ parables, for instance. It is not accidental that movements in philosophy are often deeply born out of movements in the arts. Postmodernism is a wonderful example of this. Movements in art and architecture in many ways prepared the ground for and presaged the later movements in ideas. As the artists developed new ways of seeing the world, the philosophers begin to articulate the inner logic of these new ways of viewing the world.

If I am right in my claim that a true ‘worldview’ is practically identical to ‘culture’, it is worth questioning to what extent we can speak of a Reformed worldview at all. Reformed Christians have an ideological system, but an ideological system is not sufficient to constitute a worldview. If we do have a worldview, it gives us a narrowly intellectual and insubstantial vision of reality. As one poet once claimed, Calvinism takes the Word made flesh and makes it word again. Rather than embodying a new culture, we proclaim a rather abstract doctrinal system. Our message is one of disincarnate ideas and our chief contribution to culture may well be capitalism, which despite all of its benefits, is hardly the product of a particularly rich vision of society.

Largely as a result of its neglect of liturgy, the Reformed faith has not really produced many great artists, poets and writers. Distinctly Reformed contributions to culture are few and far between. The great Christian imaginations tend to arise from Anglican, Catholic and Orthodox communities. Those in Reformed circles who do possess deeply Christian imaginations and ways of looking at the world have generally spent formative years in one of these communions, or come from Reformed churches with richer liturgies. Despite the confused character of their faith in many respects, I must acknowledge the strong purchase that Christianity has on the imagination of many of the people I know who have been brought up in churches with rich liturgies. Even many of the great non-Christian writers owe much to the visions of the world given by medieval Christianity, for instance. In the Reformation Reformed Christians corrected dangerous errors in the medieval understanding of Christian truth, but lost much of its imagination and vision.

Not recognizing the full significance of the imagination in shaping us, evangelicals and Reformed Christians are at particular risk when it comes to films and literature. Lacking a deep Christian imagination and intuitive sense of the Christian story we are more vulnerable to being misled by the weak stories and visions that our society presents us with. The right ideas alone cannot protect us from the subtly persuasive power of such visions of reality. On the other hand, we are at risk of failing to appreciate the great benefit that can be gained from reading really good literature. A deep faith needs to draw upon far more than theology volumes and the incarnate truths that we encounter in godly visions of reality in literature and the arts are extremely important for us.

The Christian faith presents us with a beautiful story and a compelling vision of the world. Christianity’s hold on the Western imagination is great, even among those who try to reject the faith. The Christian message appeals to our imagination before it addresses our logic and reason. Unfortunately, the vision of the world that most Christians operate in terms of today is quite anaemic and lacks the fullness of classic Christian thought. This, I suspect, is one of the reasons why Christianity is becoming less and less of a force within our society. People regard Christians as ideologues rather than as people with a rich cultural vision and grasp of the ‘good life’. Christianity is seen as a set of disincarnate ideas, rather than as a world-encompassing story that we can truly be at home within, a form of renewed life and a fertile vision for culture and society. A Christian recovery of the arts and classic Christian literature is an important step toward reformation in this area.

I am convinced that only Christian faith is capable of sustaining a healthy and robust imagination. Only the Church presents us with a story that is truly big enough to inhabit and a story that fertile enough to enable us to grow. In a society that is losing its imagination, the Church has much to offer as an alternative culture. However, before we seek to reach the world we must first cultivate a new culture and vision of the world within the Church itself. We must recover our own imaginations by re-engaging with the Story of Scripture and immersing ourselves in the liturgy. As our imaginations are reformed and we begin to incarnate a rich vision of life and culture within the Church, people will see Christian faith as God intended it to be seen. In light of all of this proper engagement with the arts and cultivation of the imagination is probably one of the key tasks awaiting any Church concerned about mission. We need to recapture the imagination of our society and to do so we must regain our own and begin to understand the reasons why the imagination of the world around is failing.

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