girl power

so we have:
a female monarch (QEII)
a female governor general (quentin bryce)
a female premier (christina keneally)
a female lord mayor (clover moore)
and now*, a female prime minister (julia gillard)

perhaps, for those still not sold on the 'noughty generation' (as the one which comes after gen-y), we label all those born now as gen-w, or maybe even gen-XX"

* i realise there is a handover period but it's as good as now

Acts 1 Chiasm

Luke-Acts exam in a few hours.
a little chiasm to keep you going:

Acts 1.2

a   ἄχρι ἧς ἡμέρας
b       ἐντειλάμενος τοῖς ἀποστόλοις
c           διὰ πνεύματος ἁγίου
b'      οὓς ἐξελέξατο
a'  ἀνελήμφθη

... until the day he was taken up (a,a')
after commanding the apostles he had chosen (b,b')
by the holy spirit (c)

you like?

Matthew 18 (reprieve) - forgiving one another

part 2 of my 2 part series on forgiveness yesterday. again, like last week, i had to change it up a fair bit. but that was a good thing, it meant it was fresh, and didn't feel like a recycled talk.

it was good to read the lead article in the catechist, on forgiveness in the face of unrepentance.

i think the issue is that we have one word, 'forgiveness', and we use it to cover two semantic fields:

1. forgiving the person who repents, holding no bitterness, no grudge, but freely forgiving as we have been forgiven
2. a readiness to forgive, to stand, arms outstretched, again holding no bitterness, but in the face of unrepentance, never shutting off the possibility of a reconciliation, although that is not at the present time a real possibility

thankfully there was a question in question time precisely on this, which meant i was able to draw the two threads of the talk together - both the readiness, as well as the actual forgiving.

a good case study is forgiving the dead person - you can't actually forgive them, in that a relationship is restored. but what you can do is give up the bitterness and hatred that would otherwise destroy you.

psalm 32 (reprieve) - forgiven by God

i had the privilege of preaching from Psalm 32 again on sunday just gone. in a preaching group at college i got some great feedback leading into it. in thinking about 'exegeting your congregation', it was a completely different congregation. from the north shore to a city asian congregation was in many ways a whole different world.
i think the main change was from challenging the average north-shorer's expectations of the good life, to what the psalm promises - freedom from guilt and shame.

i'm still struggling with the both-and of exegeting the passage and exegeting the congregation, but having the talk already (from 18 months ago) and then rethinking it with a different group in mind really helped me to hone the message.
perhaps preparing a talk for one group and then redoing it for another is a good way to check if you're on message (God's) or just trying to target what you see as the particular traps a stereotyped group fall into.


this sunday: i'm redoing matthew 18vv15, the same congregation shift. just rereading the talk means there's a lot of change to do!

religion in the classroom

here's another piece of gold from onn

Christian Groups: Biblical Armageddon Must Be Taught Alongside Global Warming
what i really like is you're not heaps sure who they're having a go at. it starts off having a go at the cousin of the young-earth creationist, the premillenialist (maybe once removed? i can never work that out). but by the end of the clip, i'm not so sure. what do you think?

h/t byron, who is back with a whole bunch of stuff thinking about this world.

the life-blood of the historian

Just as Odysseus found on his visit to Hades that the dead seer Teiresias could not speak to him until his inarticulate ghost had been brought to life by the blood of a sacrifice, so from the life-blood of his own sympathy the historian gives a blood transfusion to the ghosts of the past.

G.B. Caird, The Language and Imagery of the Bible, 202-3, 1980 (1997).

the task of the historian is tough. it depends on what questions one asks of the past, and in some cases (of necessity?), creating the past. here is the understandable response:

It has been said that though God cannot alter the past, historians can; it is perhaps because they can be useful to Him in this respect that He tolerates their existence.

Samuel Butler, Erewhon Revisited, ch 5.

it is clear that sympathy is required, empathy even better. it doesn't make doing history any easier, but it surely helps.

Tom Frame :: Losing My Religion

the moore college library lecture this year was given by Tom Frame.

his lecture, entitled The Apologist's Anguish: publishing Losing my Religion : unbelief in Australia, was great. not only great, but heartfelt, and obviously tough.

the book (available here), looks at the history of Australia, considering who we are as a nation, and what our attitudes towards religion are. there are many great things about this book. there are many books written about the 'four horsemen' (dawkins, hitchens, dennett, harris), which he did do, but he also looked at outspoken australian atheists. the disappointing thing is that the australians are generally no better than the rest. in a empistemically humble manner, Frame carefully examines their arguments, and acknowledges fault where fault is due. however the atheists generally turn out to be nothing more than anti-theists, resorting to unfounded (and inaccurate) statements in lieu of an argued position. that is to say, where a discussion, or even an argument, could begin, there is no interest on their side.

as Frame shared the aftermath of publishing this book as well as his earlier one, 'Evolution in the Antipodes' (which, he said, incidentally came as a result of research connected with LMR), it was saddening, if not completely surprising, to hear of the metaphoric 'bucket of bile' he received in response. while i like feedback (any feedback!), what you receive when you suggest that unbelief isn't as reasonable as it may seem, or at least no more reasonable than belief, is a torrent of abuse.

i remember looking at a video put out by CPX once, and finding out that it had been linked to by a dawkins fan site. the unreasoned, abusive, bigoted messages ('comments') on youtube were appalling. listening to Frame, you saw the toll that these unreasonable anti-theists take on a man.

finally, it was good to read the last chapter of the book, and hear how, while not losing his religion, he definitely, like all of us, thinks long and hard, from time to time, about whether to lose his religion. this is not to say he has lost it, far from it. but as we seek to live in a world where respect and honest discussion are valued virtues, it would be nice to hear that sort of honesty from the other side of the ring from time to time.


warner brothers won't let me embed the clip, but the title of his book, said Frame, comes primarily from the film clip

Jesus :: Man or Muse?

Something i was thinking through last year was how the theology of the gospels affected their historicity. it was interesting to read of the recent NT Wright conference via Mark Thompson's blog, particularly Richard Hay's criticism that Wright's approach makes the individual voices of the evangelists disappear (see the third paragraph of this summary of the conference).

and this was exactly my issue with the attention on the historical followed by Schweitzer, re-appropriated by Wright and even Paul Barnett - we can continue on our 'Quest'*, but what are we truly seeking to find?

the Jesus we are presented with is at once the historical man who lived, died, rose, and ascended; but we also meet him as the apostles knew him and convey him to us. and this is no tension, but elements that amplify each other.

image from schweitzer's book

*the abbreviated title of Schweitzer's 'Quest of the Historical Jesus' - also an abbreviated title for a longer English, for an even longer German title!

the catechist

so i haven't blogged.
but i have been doing stuff.
this is one:

the catechist was published online earlier this month. i wrote an article for it: a book review of Miroslav Volf'sExcusion and Embrace.
the book is great. hard work but great.
briefly, it's thinking about reconciliation and forgiveness.

have a read, tell me what you think.
and i'll try and post a bit more.

300

it's been a while between posts.

for my 300th (only days, coincidentally before my 30th!), i thought:

if i was doing my own translation of Genesis 3, i would call Adam Graham, and Eve Olivia. Graham Ground and Olivia Living. heaps better than Adam Adamah and Chawa Chay (ie adam of the earth and eve of the living).

would you hire me as a translator?

Herod Chiasm (Luke 23.7-11)

in contrasting Mark with Luke and the Pilate account (Mark 15.1-15, Luke 23.1-25), what is noticeable is the absence in Mark of the Herod account in the middle of the Pilate narrative (Luke 23.7-11).

The 'sandwich' technique is well known in the gospels, placing one story within another, perhaps to emphasise the centre, or even just to enhance memory in retelling the passage.

In Luke it seems both the Pilate and Herod accounts are important, but for different reasons. With Pilate, the flow of the narrative is what stands out: the mounting innocence of Jesus but the guilt of Barabbas. The Herod account however wishes to emphasise Jesus' innocence, but the guilt of the scribes and chief priests - and this is what the following chiasm reveals:


A 23.7 And when he learned that he belonged to Herod’s jurisdiction, he sent him over to Herod...

B     8 When Herod saw Jesus, he was very glad, for he had long desired to see him...

C         9 So he questioned him at some length,

D             but he made no answer.
D’             10 And the chief priests and the scribes stood by,

C’         vehemently accusing him.

B’     11 And Herod with his soldiers treated him with contempt and mocked him.

A’ Then, arraying him in splendid clothing, he sent him back to Pilate.



Thematically, we see:

A: To Herod
A': From Herod

B: Herod's joy at Jesus
B': Herod's contempt at Jesus

C: Questioning Jesus
C': Accusing Jesus

D: No intervention from Jesus
D': No intervention from the scribes

like some chiasm action? get some more here!

sunset or scum?

we were given a couple of marriage books - one good friend gave us The Good Marriage, we bought Married for God, but at the moment we're reading one another good friend gave us, The Mystery of Marriage by Mike Mason (Multnomah, CO: 2005).

what i was challenged about most recently was the way we think about people. chatting with someone about the work they used to do, i was taken back to hear the language used to describe their clients. sure, they were repeat offenders, you could even say stupid in their actions, but there is still a way you talk about fellow human beings, recognising their value as worthy of value and honour and respect, due not to themselves, but to their createdness, to their being God's image bearer.

but when reality kicks in, we see this doesn't shape our actions and our time - i would much rather walk in the forest, watch a sunset, watch nature documentary - than hang out in a dodgy venue in King's Cross, at night in the back streets of Macquarie Fields, in any number of the world's slums and ghettoes.

Mason writes:

The conclusion is inescapable, that to be in the presence of even the meanest, lowest, most repulsive specimen of humanity in the world is still to be closer to God than when looking up into a starry sky or at a beautiful sunset.
[T]here is nothing in the New Testament about beautiful sunsets. The heart of biblical theology is a man hanging on a cross, not a breathtaking scene from nature. For the Bible is centrally concerned with love, and the wonders of nature [...] touch only remotely on love. We cannot really love a sunset; we can love only a person.

pp46-47. emphasis added.



create in me a new heart, o Lord, that i might see things as you see them.

Robert Alter - Illustrated

two translations of Robert Alter have been all the rage at college - The David Story (1&2 Samuel) and this year his translation of the Psalms.

the psalms is particularly good - his translation methodology is admirable - particularly the way he strives for terseness, in homage to the underlying Hebrew.

he has also written a great book the art of biblical narrative and translated Genesis

last year however i read an article he'd written in the New Republic called Scripture Picture. It's a four page article about the new illustrated Genesis by Robert Crumb using his translation (Crumb is probably quite famous in graphic novel circles, in others not so - check out the film Crumb where he plays himself, or even American Splendor [sic] for someone playing him in a minor roll - it's a good film!)

the article really is a good read. it's a fascinating discussion about what you do as you illustrate the bible, or depict anyone in another form. who are you when you hit the page in picture? it's hard enough to identify with yourself in print (ever critically read your own CV?), without having that then exported to another medium altogether.

there is something permanent-ising, objectifying, about turning the scriptures into pictures. the ambiguity is gone, the imagination, rather than engaging with ideas, is left to other devices - perhaps joining frame to frame in their head, filling out the missing action/movement.

and i wonder, do we do the same when children are read the scriptures as a child (i'm thinking big picture bibles)? why are we so fixated on the need for images to convey a message? do we not trust that people will do the imagining themselves?

(i think i was originally going to procrastinate about whether to buy Alter or Crumb - if you have an opinion, let me know in the comments. Cheers!)

This Present Darkness

no, not my 3 month absence from blogging (however dark that might seem), but the 1986 bestseller (2.5mil sold) by Frank E. Peretti.

it's the book i chose to take on my honeymoon, mainly because it was a paperback and Calvin's Institutes was a hardback. but the recommendation for the book actually came from one of my lecturers, who billed it as:

"before there was Left Behind, there was Frank E. Peretti".

what i most enjoyed about this novel was the way it tried to minimise (erase) the distance between the earthly and the spiritual. it offers an example for anyone who's struggled to understand the biblical ideas of e.g. Ephesians 6:12; "For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places."

on the earthly, we see the godly pastor Hank (yes, it is American) with his small yet faithful flock, but also the popular megachurch pastor Oliver Young - perhaps so named because of his involvement with new-age stuff - who is part of a group who are taking over town after town to turn them into centres for their deeper spirituality.

but on the spiritual, we see this deeper spirituality is only what the demons convince their people it is - the reader knows better. the reader sees the demons with their talons stuck into people's heads, whispering lies to them. the saints of Hank's church we see are those who give power to the angels; as they gather more prayer support, the energy of the angels increases accordingly.


now, there are already some questionable things here, such as how reliant God is on our prayers to accomplish his work, but it's just so engrossing! as demons are defeated we see people released from their grip, freed from the prince of the air, and putting their life into God's hands. people become Christians, the wicked are struck down, God's saints are vindicated even though they are broken.

yes, the "new age spiritualities" are very caricatured, and the spiritual cause of things is realised in a way with no basis whatsoever (as when the car conks out because an angel has thrust their sword through the engine), but it is a novel.

it was a ripping yarn, a good holiday read. i'm still not sure whether i'll make it to the sequels (piercing the darkness and prophet). perhaps i now need to try one of the left behind series for a bit of comparison.

on introductions and headings

i don't like introductions. i don't like headings.

i've been reading and writing so much of late, and i've worked out how much i dislike overly structured writing. i actually find it quite disconcerting to read these little paragraphs between headings.

i'm not sure why, but it could be how disjointed it is, but i think more, how disjointed it is. i feel like i'm reading a microwave oven instruction manual.

particularly considering how difficult i find some material to understand, i think the vibe of what is written can be more helpful than the specifics. after all, someone who takes a couple of hundred (or thousand!) pages to say something surely can't expect you to read every single word and sentence equally, but to let it wash over you, taking you inside their thought processes.

but an introduction telling you exactly what is what, and then explaining those things exactly and specifically, point by point, is not taking me on a journey, it's not sharing their thoughts with me. it's just telling me a bunch of stuff.

if you read any of my essays (see post below) you might get what i mean. yes, there is an introduction (it's mandatory), and sure, there's a progression, but that's the journey. i'm happy if there's a few pointers on the way, but they should be signposts on the journey, not compartment labels.