Bishop John

Andrew Denton interviews Richard Dawkins on ‘Elders’ ABC TV. It will remain available for just another 8 days so be sure to check it out soon! Richard Dawkins’ reluctance, indeed refusal, to respond to personal questions is quite remarkable, as is his body language. Thanks to Ross for the link. See Elders with Andrew Denton: Series 2: Episode 6: interview with Richard Dawkins.

The interview commences:

ANDREW DENTON V/O: Richard Dawkins is the essence of scientific reason. An evolutionary biologist. A best-selling author. And, strident atheist. He’s been declared one of the most influential – and provocative – thinkers of our time.

ANDREW DENTON: Richard, thanks very much for inviting us to your house. You’ve described being moved to tears by the natural world. When has that happened? Why does it move you to tears?

RICHARD DAWKINS: I think we are social animals. We have deep emotions, we have the emotions of empathy and sympathy and sadness and love and happiness and I think it’s part of being human, part of being a social animal to have these intense emotions and I don’t find it that surprising to be moved by the natural world. But that includes things like looking up at the Milky Way and looking up at the sheer number of stars, being overwhelmed by the scale of the universe. And that to me gives a sort of overwhelming feeling of being, it’s a feeling of exultation in that case.

Richard Dawkins’ initial emotional language ‘we have deep emotions’, depicts a man capable of emotional engagement. Puzzlingly, this contrasts sharply with his inability to enagage at a personal level with Andrew Denton’s questions as the interview unfolds. Why Dawkins’ avoidance of and discomfort at the personal? Quite extraordinary. By way of example, and be sure to note his body language, the interview concludes,

RICHARD DAWKINS: I have nothing to add to the dictionary definition of a word like wisdom…

ANDREW DENTON: It’s interesting though because, and again I really am not trying to trap you here, as I said the operative word was “you”. What I’m interested in is what you draw from it, but your way of responding to that is to say, no, you’re after a dictionary definition.

RICHARD DAWKINS: Okay, well, I doubt myself enough to feel that that why should anybody be interested in… I mean I should expect people perhaps to be interested in what I can tell them about evolution, which I’ve spent a lifetime talking about, but I don’t feel I’ve got anything very wise, I suppose, to say about wisdom.

ANDREW DENTON: What do you see when you look in the mirror?

RICHARD DAWKINS: [Pause] Ah…I don’t have an interesting answer to that. I mean I see myself. No, cut that one. I guess I’ve probably dodged all the questions that you’ve been told to put to everybody.

ANDREW DENTON: No, not that I’ve been told, that I’ve chosen to. No, not all of them, but many, yes. Most of the personal ones. But that is your choice.

RICHARD DAWKINS: My choice is that I don’t think people should be interested in me, but I hope I may have something interesting to say about the world.

ANDREW DENTON: Indeed you do, and I guess it’s that, as I said when I first met you, that rigour, the way you have so rigorously approached the way you’ve examined the world, that does make you interesting.

RICHARD DAWKINS: Well that’s nice, I’m glad you think that. But perhaps let it stand at that rather than ask me to say it myself and to define anything about myself.

ANDREW DENTON: I do have one final question, having read some of your work, having looked at a lot of your work, I’m curious, what star sign are you?

RICHARD DAWKINS: [Pause] …You serious?

ANDREW DENTON: No, I just wanted to see your response! [Laughter] And it was worth it! Richard, thank you very much.

I extend to you and your families God’s richest blessings, peace and happiness as we celebrate the birth of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ.

And to our spanish speaking friends,compliments of UNO Argentina, Feliz Navidad – Felicidades,

A Christmas prayer from ‘A Prayer Book for Australia’ Broughton Books 1995, page 473

 Shalom

When religion seeks to rule by power or politicians use religion to rule we are all in for strife. The banning of the use of the word ‘Allah’ in the Bible is a good example of precisely what the Parliament of the World’s Religions seeks to avoid. Excert from the ‘Malaysian Insider’ re the ban on ‘Allah’ being used in the Bible in Malaysia, quoting Senior federal counsel from the Malaysian Attorney General’s Chambers, Kamaludin:

“The anti-propagation law was meant to “avoid creating confusion and misunderstanding” among the majority Muslim Malaysians who have grown up knowing the term “Allah” to be exclusive to their community.

Kamaludin dismissed the church’s stress on the historical significance of Christians in the country and region using the word “Allah” long before Muslims did as “not relevant” and added that there was no proof today the word was still being used in its original context among Malaysian Christians.

But he may have gone too far when he tried to counter the widespread use of Arab Christians who also use the word “Allah” to refer to their God.

Kamaludin claimed that Arab Christians believed that God was one, unlike Malaysian Christians who subscribe to the “trinity” concept of “God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost”.

You have to ask if the Malaysian Government’s claim that Arab Christians and Malaysian Christians have different understandings of the Christian doctrine of God is blind ignorance or bad information or a knowing untruth used in the pursuit of religious and political imposition of power.

See the full report by Debra Chong. Comments are also interesting. The court is due to hand down its decision on 30 December 2009. Please pray for religious freedom in Malaysia.

See also my posts  Swiss minaret ban is bad  and  Burqas and religious freedom.

It occurs to me that a billboard is a sign: it points us towards something or someone. A billboard can be for good or ill: see Church billboard-wrong message?

I gained some further food for thinking about billboards from our Diocese’s website resources Lectionary-based study outlines, Growing Disciples of Jesus, the reading for 17 January 2010, John 2:1-11,

 “Traditionally, John’s Gospel has been seen to be structured around two ‘books’: The book of signs (chapters 1:19-12:50) and the book of glory (chs 13-20). Contextually and conceptually, our passage (John 2:1-11) is located within the ‘book of signs’. The ‘sign’ recorded in our passage (turning water into wine) is the first, and it functions as a signpost to Jesus’ true identity and mission. While a sign is important, its true importance lies in the destination, the person, to whom it points. Each sign indicates a truth about Jesus and together these truths tell of his divine nature: ‘And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.’ (1:14)

“At the end of the telling of each incident there is a commentary on the miracle, indicating what it signifies and so drawing out the deep meaning of Jesus’ coming among us. In structuring his account of the Gospel to draw out the inner spiritual truths of Jesus, the author is showing how the disciples of Christ both then and now are given assurance that they are following the signs, that they are going the right way, that we are rightly understanding the life and purposes of this man, Jesus Christ. The conclusion for those who see and follow the signs: ‘and his disciples believed in him’ (2:11).

“John tells us why he selected and recorded these specific signs that Jesus did: ‘that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name’ (20:30-31).”

 Now that is what billboards should be on about: they should be signs pointing the way for us to rightly understand the life and purposes of this man, Jesus Christ. Bring on these signs, these billboards!

St Matthew-in-the-city (Auckland, New Zealand) have caused a worldwide stir with a billboard showing Joseph and Mary in bed, titled “Poor Joseph. God was a hard act to follow.”

The billboard went up last Thursday and was defaced with brown paint within five hours. The Australian morning news show, Sunrise, aired a story, “Bible Bedroom Billboard” and posted a web article “Judgement swift for church’s saucy billboard. Have your say”, the next morning.

The church writes on their website their purpose in putting up the billboard,

To invite people to think about the virgin birth and the nature of God.

To say that there was more than one Christian way to think about the virgin birth and God.  Indeed there are many.

To promote the Progressive view of Jesus having 2 human parents and God being the power of love in his life.

To ridicule the very literalistic view that God is a male and literally sired Jesus.

To invite people outside of the church to see a type of Christianity here at St Matthew’s that they might be able to relate to.

People are certainly talking about the billboard. As with all issues you have people cheering on this approach to getting the Christian message out, and then you have those who are truly offended by this type of  ‘advertising” and feel it is very inappropriate.

This political cartoon taking the mickey out of the billboard suggests it has people’s attention.

The church website claims,

To make the news at Christmas it seems a priest just needs to question the literalness of a virgin giving birth. Many in society mistakenly think that to challenge literalism is to challenge the norms of Christianity. What progressive interpretations try to do however is remove the supernatural obfuscation and delve into the deeper spiritual truth of this festival.

Christian fundamentalism believes a supernatural male God who lived above sent his sperm into the womb of the virgin Mary. Although there were a series of miraculous events surrounding Jesus’ birth – like wandering stars and angelic choirs – the real miracle was his death and literal resurrection 33 years later. The importance of this literal resurrection is the belief that it was a cosmic transaction whereby the male God embraced humanity only after being satiated by Jesus’ innocent blood.  – Archdeacon Glynn Cardy, Christmas theologies and billboards

Our Dean of Hobart, The Very Revd Richard Humphrey, comments on this,

It is to my mind profoundly wrong as it claims the fundamentalists believe a male god impregnated Mary with his sperm, a highly pagan idea and I know of no Christian  in history who would think this and it has been rejected by orthodox Christians throughout history. Biblical Christianity believes in a virgin birth not a ‘sex with a god’ birth.

Personally, I believe the billboard sends any Christmas conversation completely in the wrong direction by attacking a non-existent view of the incarnation. The billboard  does not deal with what lies at the centre of God’s coming to be with us. It is inept and unchristian. Unhelpful, one would have to say; particularly at Christmas time. 

Recent developments: The church replaced the billboard, but there was a second attack, this time by a Christian wielding a knife. The billboard was later ripped down by “fanatics” and the church said it will not be replacing it. Let me be clear: this violence is wrong.

My experience of this earthly life is that aggression and violence beget aggression and violence. An aggressive billboard promotes aggression. It does not promote the Prince of Peace.

PS  Controversy is not evangelism.