praxis vs theology

chatting about evil again. reading david bentley hart's doors of the sea again.

but this time it's with others, including mark and steve, who have been interviewing christian counsellors for their pilgrims podcast.

the reason i mention this is not to promote them (they do enough self-promotion as it is), but to raise the question of how what we say to people relates to what we think - and particularly in the context of suffering.

if we believe evil is evil, an affront to God, an absurdity, then let us say this.

however, if we believe in a divine, universal harmony, where nothing happens but by the hand of God, and we are talking to someone suffering - why can we not say this? is this not the gospel of comfort to the suffering, the poor, the bound? but we realise that saying 'it's all a part of God's plan' is no comfort, and not pastorally appropriate.

my question is, if what we believe does not match with what we are willing and comfortable to say, are we too weak to say the truth that might hurt, or is our theology profoundly impersonal and thus leaving us in a schizophrenic state as we try to comfort the suffering?

what do counsellors do? what do you do?

can we in a clear conscience preach one thing from the pulpit and say another in the hospital room?

if evil is evil, it is evil. let us proclaim the goodness of God despite that evil.

does music matter?

this isn't one of those posts where i pose a question about which i've already made up my mind. rather, in response to a chat tonight at another sydney-theoblogger-hang (sign up to justin moffatt's blog to keep updated for future meet-ups), i was wondering to what extent our theory and praxis meet in this area.

i know not a few who go to hillsong or oxford falls ccc on an alternating basis with their 'regular bible-teaching place'; they get their worship one week, their teaching the next.

of course, this has a few presuppositions: that worship=emotional singing; that being changed and responding to a deeper and/or corrected understanding of who God is and how he has acted in his world is not worship - of course this does not diminish the importance of teaching and led reflection, but it does say they're different things.


but as mooted, this post is the question of the meeting of theory and praxis. to explain - at my old church they have an awesome band, most of whom play most weeks of the year. music there rocks. but where i went this week, while not bad, was... lacklustre? in comparison?

now while i want to say with all my mind that this doesn't matter, my heart tells me otherwise. so the question is then why? and is it a right feeling or a wrong understanding (if you understand my distinction).

someone suggested tonight (not sure if i should use their name or not - if they contact me i can know one way or the other!) that we should understand the distinction and emphasis as not music but singing. i guess this is to say that the best music in the world with lacklustre singing is nothing, because music is a servant to the singing of praises to God. but something i have been a part of is the most heartfelt singing with at the most a guitar or piano or organ or acapella.

i don't really know where this post is going except to say i want to know how better to match my theory with my praxis. hmmm i think i'm out of the swing of this whole blogging thing.

Isaiah 26 Chiasm

so i have this essay, right, on Isaiah 26:12-19 and what it contributes to an OT theology of the afterlife. i still have no idea of the answer, but i think i've found some more chiasms!

12   God's great deeds
13           Others may take your place - we will remember you
14           Others will be punished - they won't be remembered
15   God's great deeds

16   God brings man down
17           Pregnant writhing
                      That's us
18           Pregnant writhing
     Man is brought down

19   the dead will rise
          they'll rejoice
          they'll be sustained
      the dead will rise

and 19a is even a little chiasm of its own (will live - your dead, my corpse - will rise i.e. A-B, B-A).

BUT WHAT DOES IT ALL HELP ME?

i don't think i need to talk about the chiastic structure - it doesn't change the argument one way or the other as regards the afterlife, so i'm not quite sure what to do with it all!

music and moving

a long time ago (my first post) i wrote about time, where we think it's heading and how that affects how we live today (i may not have mentioned all that but it's there implicitly).


so what does music say about time? Russell Rook writes

"Eschatologically speaking, music seems capable of conveying our greatest hopes and most terrible fears. It can transport us from the heights of heaven to the gates of hell."139*

reflecting on the type of music i like depending on my mood, this chapter has been really helpful.

because repetitive music (i like repetitive music, i like repetitive music) is about escapism - that time is cyclical, that there is no eschaton, that we all just keep going around and around with no consequences, as eagle eye cherry so well put it:

Go on and close the curtains
cause all we need is candle light
You and me and a bottle of wine
going to hold you tonight
Well we know I'm going away
and how I wish, I wish it weren't so
So take this wine and drink with me
let's delay our misery

Save tonight
and fight the break of dawn
Come tomorrow
tomorrow I'll be gone

there is a deep need in us for escapism, for forgetting that tomorrow will come with all its consequences. and it makes sense then that repetitive music is escapist, in popular music, and in Christian music also. anyone who has heard a group singing the chorus to 'How Great is our God' for an hour (as i heard a couple of years ago) has to question whether they are actually looking forward to Jesus' return.

but the Christian's hope is not escapist - it is towards a renewal of this earth, a restoration of justice and peace and true kingship under God's anointed king. platonic escapism that is so ingrained in so much Christian music is nothing more than a gnostic mysticism. we want to praise God with our songs, but that doesn't mean ceasing to exist as we lose ourself in the brahmanistic pantheism repetitive music encourages.

*Russell Rook, 'In God's Good Time', 138-148 in Stephen Holmes and Russell Rook, What are we waiting for? Christian Hope and Contemporary Culture. Bucks, UK: Paternoster, 2008.

Thinking like a Philosopher :: Series

To get into second year Philosophy (i did fun subjects like World Religions and the Gospel instead in first year), i've had to write 3,500 words all up on various philosophers, 250-400 per topic.

As i publish them, come back here to see the newest ones.

But they are:

1. Plato: What is Plato’s theory of forms, and how does his ‘cave’ story help explain the theory?
   
2. (a) Aristotle: How does Aristotle differ from Plato?
   OR
   (b) Aristotle: Briefly summarise what teleology meant for Aristotle.
   
3. Aquinas: In what ways was Thomas Aquinas interested in philosophy?
   
4. Theology: What are some examples of the impact of Greek philosophy on Christian theology?
   
5. Descartes and rationalism: How did Descartes seek to secure true knowledge?
   
6. Locke, Hume and empiricism: In what ways do these thinkers differ from Descartes?
   
7. Kant: Why might Kant be described as ‘the answer’ to the dispute between rationalists and empiricists?
   
8. Nietzsche: In what ways did Nietzsche disagree with most of what had gone before him?
   
9. Derrida: Why does Derrida ‘deconstruct’ things?
   
10. Philosophy and theology: In what ways does the study of philosophy help, and/or hinder, the study of theology?

hang on for the ride.

by way of bibliography, to be honest, it's pretty loose. in the end, i drew fairly freely from the following works (whilst hopefully refraining from plagiarism of any kind - i went with the vibe):

Sproul, R.C. The Consequences of Ideas: Understanding the Concepts that Shaped Our World. Wheaton: Crossway, 2000.
Fearn, N., Zeno and the Tortoise: How to Think Like a Philosopher. London: Atlantic, 2001.
as well as from a really great podcast,
Warburton, N., Philosophy: The Classics.
and an interview of Robert Rowland Smith by Nigel Warburton on the Philosophy Bites podcast,
Edmonds, D., and N. Warburton, Robert Rowland Smith on Derrida on Forgiveness. Philosophy Bites.

Doors of the Sea - David Bentley Hart

with a greek half-yearly in 2 days, a sermon to write, and countless hours of reading and hebrew paradigms to do, i thought i'd buy and read this book. it's based on a newspaper article he wrote a couple of days after the asian tsunami, and in light of reading the beauty of the infinite, i wanted to see the way an eastern orthodox theologian dealt with the complex question of suffering in the midst of a sovereign God. i read the first couple of chapters last night.

i'm not going to get much work done this week...


UPDATE (22/5/08): i forgot to mention that you can read a fair portion of this book on google books, here
happy procrastinating!

Words David Bentley Hart Uses (with reckless abandon)

monad
3. Philosophy.
a. (in the metaphysics of Leibniz) an unextended, indivisible, and indestructible entity that is the basic or ultimate constituent of the universe and a microcosm of it.
b. (in the philosophy of Giordano Bruno) a basic and irreducible metaphysical unit that is spatially and psychically individuated.
c. any basic metaphysical entity, esp. having an autonomous life.

plenitude
1. fullness or adequacy in quantity, measure, or degree; abundance: a plenitude of food, air, and sunlight.
2. state of being full or complete.

Sobornost
3. Russian, Religion. Kireevsky asserted that "the sum total of all Christians of all ages, past and present, comprise one indivisible, eternal living assembly of the faithful, held together just as much by the unity of consciousness as through the communion of prayer". The term in general means the unity that is the church, based on individual like minded interest.

dégringolade
French. a quick deterioration or breakdown, as of a situation or circumstance.

i assume i'll have to look up a dictionary for the untranslated greek and latin (latin includes vinculum caritatis and causa in fieri)

i do thank God for dictionary.com (where all these references are sourced)

we're now up to page 187 of Hart's the Beauty of the Infinite, through but a fraction of his breathtaking, brain-exploding section on the trinity.

He summarises point 2. as

"The Christian understanding of difference and distance is shaped by the doctrine of the Trinity, where theology finds that the true form of difference is peace, of distance beauty" (p187)

i most enjoyed this section, where difference is shown to be peace and not threat, and distance is indeed beautiful. a hard read, but well worth it.

A Clear and Present Word Part I

Reflections, in light of the five key points from Mark Thompson’s new book (A Clear and Present Word: The Clarity of Scripture), as well as Peter Adam’s talks at this year’s National Training Event (NTE), all about Receiving God’s Word, Written for his People, by his Spirit, about his Son (check out this, or a shorter version here on youtube for the mnemonic).


Christian theology, at its most basic, is talk about God.

One of the things I struggle with, thinking about writing “theologically”, is what it means to do so.
Questions I have, for example, are “Can a Christian book be untheological?” as well as “how far from the central themes of the Bible do you have to stray before you cease to be theological?”
The second question in particular interests me, mainly because I’m easily sidetracked. For example, using your Strong’s concordance, you could trace every occurance of the word Hittite, and then work out what role the Hittites played in Biblical history, what they got up to, whether there were Hittites who converted to the God of Israel, and so on.
And I would probably find it quite interesting.

But at the end of the day, such talk is probably along the lines of what we are warned about in 1 Timothy 1:4, that is, it is fruitless, idle speculation, and of little, if any consequence theologically. Of course, historians, sociologists etc may be fascinated by this.

Christian Theology, however, is most interested in God. What this word study of the Hittites may teach us of God, I can only imagine. But if that is not the aim, then the searching of, and reflecting upon the scriptures is completely missing the point.

I guess there could then be things we think may tell us things about God, that, midway through the process, we need to actually jettison as unfruitful.

I therefore feel very sorry (and very soon probably empathy) for those doing 4th yr theses, as I fear they may have no choice in the matter...

Christotypism

i may have already mentioned my sermon series on Lamentations, thankfully the moose is up. it's done, done, done.

i had a squiz at the Perspective website (a resource set up by a bunch of pastors with helpful tips for preachers)

for interest's sake i had a look, and they gave three ways of looking at the OT, and specifically the book of Lamentations;

1/ A Christotelic Approach - Jesus the fulfillment of the OT. OT sets up the problem, Jesus is sent by God as the solution to them.

2/ A Christotypic Approach - the OT provides the shadow, Jesus is the epitome.

3/ An Exemplary Approach - look at the examples of good and bad. learn from it.

(this was from Bryson Smith's outline - not to be confused with Byron Smith)


i think there are places for all three of these approaches.

my previous post refers to a group who may use 3/ a whole heap, i'm not sure of the extent of the other two.

in our church's series on the story of life used 1/ a heap more.

going through Lamentations, a few years ago i would definitely have used 1/ and 3/. but this time around it was 2/ all the way.


it was hard, it felt almost wrong to say that Jerusalem was a "type" of Christ. the language is of Jerusalem being the annointed one, God's holy one, almost messianic. [like the (relatively) new Jewish reading of Isaiah 52-53.]

Jesus came as Jerusalem, was punished as Jerusalem.

and thinking through the atonement after having read Lamentations in a Christotypic way made it a whole lot clearer.

and i pray this was also true for the fellow-travellers.

Hillsong loves a cheerful tither

on my day off yesterday, before auditioning for ready steady cook, i was watching whatever the channel 7 morning show is (the one with larry), and they were interviewing some Hillsongers

having several people in my faculty at uni from hillsong, and other denominations i'm not 100% on the same page as, i've often tried to pin down why i'm uncomfortable with a lot of what they say.

there are many areas of agreement, but it's not good enough to say "i like some of your stuff, but not this," as there must be an underlying thing behind it.

and i think larry's question on tithing might have triggered the answer.

the atheist society at UNSW had a sign up saying, "Hillsong: God's ATM Machine (sic.)"

larry's question was along these lines, and the answer was, "tithing is a biblical principal. I give 10%."

and i think i've got it
it's all about biblical theology.
the way they read the bible, beginning to end, is fundamentally different. questions i have from Hillsong members, and other AOG* churches, betray a lack of understanding in the cohesiveness of the whole bible. a superficiality of understanding, of Jesus' fulfillment of the Law.

so Paul's exhortation to give generously, with a joyful heart, supplying others' need out of your riches; has been summed up in the Law - give 10%, as opposed to the other way around, where 10% was a number, due to the hardness of people's hearts.

i hope this is the sympathetic reading i've been searching for.

* Assemblies of God, the bigger denomination Hillsong comes under