Bishop John

A growing curiosity slowly replaced my initial response of ‘statistics and damned statistics’, to a radio report of a study which researched the size of the food, plates and heads of the disciples depicted at the Last Supper! Yes, no kidding, somebody did the stats.

As we approach Maundy Thursday with the Bible readings and remembrance of Jesus Christ at his ‘Last Supper’ with his disciples, the study brings forth cultural curiosity and devotional reflection.

 This Maundy Thursday be sure not just to count heads and wash feet, but to measure heads and plates and portions! Oh! And enjoy the supper of thanksgiving at the Lord’s table.

A new article in the International Journal of Obesity doesn’t turn the clock back quite that far, but it does look at nearly a thousand years’ worth of paintings depicting that biblical meal, and concludes that the sizes of portions, plates and bread have “increased dramatically” over that time span.

The study, conducted by the brothers Brian Wansink, a professor of consumer behavior at Cornell University and director of the school’s Food and Brand Lab, and Craig Wansink, a professor of religious studies at Virginia Wesleyan College, looks at 52 Last Supper paintings made between about 1000 and 1800, including famous depictions by Leonardo, Titian and El Greco.

After the sizes of the food in the art works were indexed against the average size of the disciples’ heads (which can vary from painting to painting), the study found that the main courses grew by 69 percent, the plates grew by 66 percent and the size of the bread grew by 23 percent.

Full article at Super-Sizing the Last Supper.

Devotional comment (number 3) from Brother Joseph SFO,

to those who believe, there is nothing more intimate, more powerful and beautiful, more inspiring and good, than this intimate gathering of the kind Master and His dear friends. How I wish everyone could plumb the heart of this sublime gathering and taste ‘the Bread of Life’ – know the life and love of God as a reality in their hearts and minds. There is nothing greater, in this world, this life, than knowing the Living God.

Missiological comment (number 7) re our expressing the Gospel in our context or setting from Jane CO,

 In response to some of the comments above: artists were not and are not obligated to be culturally or historically accurate. That is something that our society is very interested in now, but we shouldn’t judge past generations for not displaying the same interest. First of all, they had fewer means to know what would have been historically and culturally accurate than we do today. Secondly, people have always been interested in seeing their own contemporary lives and problems reflected and commented upon by art, even if its main purpose is devotional. I wouldn’t call that selling out. Rather, it is what sparks creativity. Such modernizations also help contemporary viewers to imagine themselves in biblical scenes and relate to what is going on there, thus moving them to devotion.

I recommend you regularly check the Preaching page on our Diocesan website which provides a resource for the help and encouragement of those in our diocese who are entrusted with the important task of preaching and teaching the Bible.

Biblical teaching and preaching explores the question, what is biblical teaching and preaching?, and arrives at the conclusion that, Biblical preaching is a partnership between God and the preacher whereby God speaks by the proclamation of his Word about his Son through his Spirit for the salvation and edification of God’s people.

Ensuring our preaching is Christian asks, could many of our “Christian” sermons be happily preached by a Jew or Muslim? Is our preaching just moralizing or character studies? Is our preaching disconnected from the Bible’s main message – Jesus? Here is where we see the importance for our Bible reading and preaching of understanding that the Bible is 66 books yet ONE book telling ONE story: how God in Christ reigns and reconciles his people to himself.

A suggested list of Books for Biblical Preachers which include, Please! No More Boring Sermons: Preaching for Australians – Contemporary Insights and Practical Aspects, Preach or Perish: Reaching the hearts and minds of the world today, and many more.   

 Illustrate or perish is for those who speak at the ‘graveyard shift’ after lunch or find themselves contending with an audience fighting the urge to sleep. This page’s title insists that without well-timed illustrative material in our preaching, we the preacher, our poor hearers, and our sermon, will ‘perish.’

Other topics include

• Planning a preaching series: Preaching through the lectionary or through the bible?
• Online preaching and sermon resources, Bible search and Tasmanian forums
• Online studying and certificates in preaching and theology and ministry
• Funeral Messages
• Preaching in a suffering world
• A template for sermon preparation by Paul Barnett

Dr John Cranswick was a precious elder in the faith to my family. In his ministry to us as CMS Medical Officer he encouraged and guided our lives to Christ in the most gracious and caring of ways. His faith and ministry to us and to many was wholistic; covering body, mind, emotions and spirit.

A dear friend, Margie, recently shared one of John’s favourite and often said prayers.

May the Holy Spirit work transformation in your life as you pray John’s prayer: 

O Holy Spirit of God,

Come into my heart and fill me.

I open the windows of my soul to let you in.

I surrender my whole life to You.

Come and possess me–

Fill me with light and truth.

I offer to you the one thing I really possess–

My capacity to be filled by you.

Of myself I am an empty vessel.

Fill me, so that I may live

The life of the Spirit–

The life of truth and goodness;

The life of wisdom and love.

And guide me today in all things.

Guide me to the people I should meet and help—

To the circumstances in which I can best serve You,

Whether by my actions or my sufferings.

But above all,

Please help me to de-throne self in my heart,

And make you King.  Amen.

Melanie Phillips writes that there are fundamental flaws in Richard Dawkins’ atheistic perspective, including ‘scientism’, intolerance towards those who disagree with him, unfounded assertions (‘hubristic over-reach’) and unscholarly disdain in refusing to engage in a scholarly way with academics who hold different views. What fuels the zealot Dawkins? 

(Dawkins) became the apostle of scientism, the ideology that says everything in the universe has a materialist explanation and must answer to the rules of empirical scientific evidence; to believe anything else is irrational.

A second’s thought tells one this is absurd. Love, law and philosophy are not scientific yet they are not irrational. So it is scientism that seems to be irrational.

As for Dawkins’s claim that religion is responsible for the ills of the world, this is demonstrably a wild distortion. Some of the worst horrors in human history – the French revolutionary terror, Nazism, communism – have been atheist creeds. And although terrible things indeed have been done in the name of religion, the fact remains that Christianity and the Hebrew Bible form the foundation stone of Western civilisation and its great cause of human equality and freedom.

Phillips speculates on the reasons for Dawkins’ anger, gross intolerance and hatred of religion. Could it be that he is actually terrified that God is the alternative answer to his belief that there is no intelligence that gives rise to life. 

To stamp out the terrifying possibility of even a divine toe peeping over the threshold, all opposition has to be shut down. And so the great paradox is that the arch-hater of religious intolerance himself behaves with the zeal of a religious fundamentalist and, despite excoriating religion for stifling debate, does this in spades.

Full article by Melanie Phillips in The Australian at Dawkins preaches to the deluded against the divine.

See further comment:  Dawkins at atheist convention  and  Atheist bus in Melbourne  and  Atheism bus sighted – Hobart  and remember The Melbourne Anglican resource The Case for God.

Reports from the Global Atheist Convention were not encouraging of respect, tolerance and the nurture of a healthy society.

In reading The Age article, Dawkins delivers the sermon they came to hear, I was struck by the

1. lack of scholarship, let alone grace, in the ‘Nazi Pope’ comment – Surely the scholar that Dawkins clearly is in science would have investigated and found out that all German youths at 14 years, which included the current Pope, were conscripted into Hitler Youth, the Nazi fascist cause at  that time.

2.avoidance of serious conversation with the subject matter as for example when Dawkins says, ”It’s just surreal (that theologians believe in miracles) and completely gives the lie to the claim that the sophisticated theologians should look down on fundamentalist wingnuts. They are all the same.”

3. personal aggression – ‘playing the man and not the ball’.  As in ABC’s Robyn Williams’ comment on Dawkins’ remark concerning Senator Fielding’s belief in creationism:

“I can give you a devastating argument against religion in two words,” Williams said in his introduction. “Senator Fielding. Richard Dawkins said his IQ is lower than an earthworm, but I think earthworms are useful.”

I also disagree with Senator Fielding on creationism but I pray to God that I would not belittle his person because of this difference of opinion.

4. gross over generalisations, “They are all the same.”

5. dismissive arrogance as above, “they (sophisticated theologians and fundamentalist wingnuts) are all the same.” Also Dawkins’ statement that Mary MacKillop’s canonisation by ”Pope Nazi” was ”pure Monty Python”. As much as many may have reserves about çanonisation, this mockery is arrogant in its dismissal and uncaring and disrespectful of other’s beliefs. Not the sort of society most of us want to live in. What lies behind such conduct? – surely not the building of a caring and compasionate society.

6. Why does a person who is a scholar in one field of study suspend their scholarly approach when in another field of study? Surely Dawkins’ unscholarly grand-standing will start to wear thin on even the most convinced atheist?

The Australian newspaper report on the conference, Celebrating life beyond belief, likewise teems with the atheist speakers’ simplicisms, ridicule, easy laughs and self-congratulation.

In the light of the above, I was intrigued by the thoughtful discernment in  Why atheists’ ridicule won’t win friends and influence people. 

Evaluating the convention depends on what one considers its purpose. If it was to validate hardline atheists to themselves and give them confidence, it was a triumph. If it was to take a mature look at how to advance the cause of secularism, politically and socially, the speakers should probably have spent less time ridiculing religion and more on positive and practical ideas.

. . . Also unworthy were ABC science presenter Robyn Williams offering “a devastating argument against religion in two words: Senator Fielding”; former Hillsong member Tanya Levin: “I’m finally getting to hang out with the adults”; and Rationalist Society president Ian Robinson, asking whether there were any believers in the audience. “OK, I’ll speak really slowly.” (Wild applause after each.)

What was missing was any sign of self-deprecation. Atheism will be a mature movement in Australia when atheists can laugh not just at the religious, but at themselves.

See also Atheist bus in Melbourne.