eChurch Christian Blog

The Guardian has a poll on at the moment asking:

Is physicist Stephen Hawking right that physics, not God, created the universe?

The results so far are:

81.3% Yes. I believe in gravity, not divinity

18.8% No. God: Hawking ‘not necessary’

Go on hop over and boost the “Hawking not necessary” vote.

Finally resumed reading Diarmaid MacCulloch’s seminal work, ‘A History of Christianity’ after my month long Tom Wright excursion.

Most recent previous post on ‘A History of Christianity’ can be found here.

Unfortunately the snippet below covers the darker period of Western Christianity, circa 13-15th Century:

Pages 419-420:

This constant exposition of the Passion had an unfortunate side effect. To dwell on Christ’s sufferings was liable to make worshippers turn their attention to those whom the Bible narrative principally blamed for causing the pain: the Jews. Franciscans were not slow to make the connection explicit, and in doing so, they complicated and darkened the already tense relationship bewteen Jews and Christians.

Augustine of Hippo had declared that God had allowed the Jews to survive all the disasters in their history to act as a sign and a warning to Christians. They should therefore be allowed to continue their community life within the Christian world, although without the full privileges of citizenship which Christians enjoyed: God only intended them to be converted en masse when he chose to bring the world to an end. So Jews continued to be the only non-Christian community formally tolerated in the Christian West, but their position was always fragile, and they were excluded from positions of power or mainstream wealth-creating activities. One result was that a significant number turned to money-lending at interest (usury), an activity which, thanks to half-understood prohibitions in the Tanakh, the Church prohibited to Christians. That trade could bring wealth to Jews, but certainly not popularity.

It is true that Franciscans had not pioneered or singly-handedly invented the link between Jews and the Passion. The Western liturgy of Holy Week had been celebrating and intensifying the drama of Good Friday, the day of Jesus’s death, for at least a century before their first appearance, and others had drawn conclusions from the emotion of the liturgical experience. Yet the tragedy remains: the heirs of the apostle of love, Francis, were among the chief sustainers of the growing hatred of Jews in medieval Western Europe. It was in this atmosphere that England pioneered Western Europe’s first mass expulsion of Jews when in 1289, Edward I’s Parliament refused to help the King out of his war debts unless he rid the realm of all Jews; other rulers followed suit later.

Such anti-Semitic ill-will continued to be balanced, in the untidy fashion of human affairs and with Augustine’s lukewarm encouragement, by perfectly cordial or straightforward relations between Jews and Christians, but the impulse to harass or persecute Jews became a persistent feature of Western Christianity which it has only now properly confronted in the wake of terrible events in the twentieth century. Jews were not the only group to be scapegoated: we have already noted the way that in bad times, lepers and homosexuals could also be seen as conspiring against Christian society.

The early fourteenth century added a news set of conspirators: Satan and his agents on earth, witches. Pope John XXII, a man much exercised by enemies and disruptors of the Church like the spiritual Franciscan, crystallized a good deal of academic debate about magic and witchcraft which had been building up during the previous half-century. In 1320 he commissioned a team of theological experts to consider whether certain specific cases of malicious conjuring could be considered heresy, a controversial proposition generally previously denied by theologians, who had tended to treat magic, spells and meetings with the Devil as devilish illusions without substance. In the wake of the Pope’s commission, six or seven years later he issued a bull, Super illius specula, which now proclaimed that any magical practices or contracts with demons were by their nature heretical and therefore came within the competence of inquisitions. This was one of those ideas which bide their time; for the moment witches were not much troubled by the Church’s discipline, but more than a century later, with the aid of new publicists fired by their own obsessions, the Western Church and its Protestant successors were to initiate more than two centuries of active witch persecution.

OK that was a very dark period.

Blog post on the Pope’s upcoming visit by Aaqil Ahmed, the Head of Religion and Ethics at the BBC:

BBC Blog:

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Today – as a forty-one year-old man – I am now preparing for the first visit of a Pontiff for 28 years (and the first ever State visit) and I am in a very different place. I am obviously a lot older, I hope wiser, a father myself, and I am very proud to now be the BBC’s Head of Religion and Ethics and the Commissioning Editor for Religion TV. And this papal visit by the current pope – Benedict XV1 – rather than being a passing fascination, is on my mind every minute of every day, morning, noon and night. Why? Because I, along with many of my colleagues across BBC TV, radio and online, are getting ready to cover this historic State occasion with a myriad of eclectic programming.

The Pope’s visit from 16 -19 September is being organised and paid for by the Catholic Church (in England and in Scotland) and by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. It has polarised public opinion like no other before and you only have to open a paper to see that it has got the nation talking. What will happen when he gets here and, more importantly, what he may say, is sure to dominate the news agenda. His arrival on the 16 September will also mark – and be the culmination of – many months of planning and organisation (not to mention sleepless nights) for our BBC teams working on all the aspects of covering the Pope’s Visit 2010.

From the production crews working on all the live events, to the news teams across the BBC, down to the documentary producers finalising programmes giving an important insight into some of the wider issues that surround the papacy of Joseph Ratzinger, this has been an extremely busy, fraught but entirely fascinating few months.

The UK has changed a lot in those 28 years since the last time we greeted a Pontiff, and the Britain that awaits Pope Benedict XV1 as he ascends to the tarmac is a very different place than the Britain that awaited Pope John Paul 11. It is more multicultural, secular and, thanks to the recent controversies that have rocked the Catholic Church, the current Pope will no doubt be met by some very vocal groups who are against him being here altogether. However, for the majority of the many millions of Catholics in the UK, the Pope’s arrival will be much looked forward to and also celebrated.

One thing is for sure, this is a State event, that will be both newsworthy and of national interest and significance, and, as the nation’s broadcaster, it is appropriate that we cover it in the best way we can – with the scale, depth and overall balance of programming across all our platforms – TV, radio and online – that only the BBC can deliver.

I hope you manage to watch some of the coverage, and you find it as fascinating as I undoubtedly will.

You can find details of all the programmes to coincide with the Pope’s Visit 2010 by following the below link.

BBC announces event coverage of the Pope’s Visit 2010

Aaqil Ahmed is Commissioning Editor for Television. Head of Religion and Ethics

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As the issue of Biblical literalism seems to be a recurring theme in conversations on this blog, I’ve decided to highlight a couple of pieces which to my mind expose some of the problems endemic within the literalistic approach:

First from BioLogos:

For some Christians, it is very important to read the Bible literally unless it is impossible to do otherwise. In fact, some hold that reading the Bible literally is the only way to read it as God’s authoritative word for the church. As the logic goes, once you start down the road of not taking the Bible literally, there is no telling where that road will end. Individual Christians will be free to pick and choose what parts of the Bible are binding and which parts aren’t. At that point, the Bible ceases being the authority, and we become the authority. That would mean chaos for Christian doctrine.

Literalism is seen as the safest way to maintain the doctrinal health of the church. That is why some consider it to be the default position of faithful readers of the Bible.

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Some Christians apply this line of thought is applied to the creation stories in Genesis. It is thought that, since there is no announcement or any other indication to the contrary, we have no option other than to accept this as a literal account of history.

Literalism is designed to insure that Christians not go down the slippery slope to relativism. Literalism builds a fence around the Bible. Occasionally it is necessary to take some things non-literally, but by and large all biblical interpretation is well inside the literalist fence.

As compelling as this logic may be, it runs up against some significant problems. Those problems are generated by the Bible itself. That doesn’t mean a totally literal interpretation of the Bible is always wrong. Not at all. But it does mean that literalism is not the default position that Christians should take.

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Ed Stetzer has just posted a blog article entitled; Calling for Contextualization Part 6: Loving and Hating the World and although he’s not explicitly tackling the issue of Biblical liberalism, his very first paragraph highlights to me the problems that can arise if a person always adopts this approach and never contextualises:

The Scripture has a lot to say on the subject of “the world” that, on a cursory reading, can seem contradictory. Consider, for example, what the Apostle John says. In John 3:16 he wrote: “For God so loved the world…” But then in 1 John 2:15 he wrote: “Do not love the world or the things that belong to the world. If anyone loves the world, love for the Father is not in Him.” He records Jesus’ words in John 12:47, “For I did not come to judge the world but to save the world,” but relates Jesus’ admonition in 15:19, “If you were of the world, the world would love its own. Yet because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.”

It seems like poor John can’t seem to make up his mind about “the world,” and whether we should love it or hate it.

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Taken literally are we supposed to love the world as God did, or hate it, or neither?

Another example that jumps to mind is Luke 14:26:

“If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters–yes, even his own life–he cannot be my disciple”

So, even though I’m exhorted to love as God loves, in the literalist world view presumably I’m to hate my family?

Any thoughts?

On a purely personal note I feel Turkey is one of the most disheartening nations on earth, especially given its marvelous and rich Christian history and heritage. From Western media sources to Eastern, I never seem to come across anything positive reported about Turkey.

Fact of the day: The seven churches mentioned in the book of Revelation were located in western Asia Minor (present-day Turkey).

CNN:

Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew is the living embodiment of an ancient tradition. From his historic base in Istanbul, Turkey, the 270th Patriarch of Constantinople claims to be the direct successor of the Apostle Andrew.

Today he’s considered “first among equals” in the leadership of the Greek Orthodox church, and is the spiritual leader of 250 million Orthodox Christians around the world. But few of them are in his own home country.

“We are a small Christian minority,” Bartholomew laments.

“We have suffered because of Greek-Turkish confrontation, struggle, and a lack of mutual trust and confidence. And that is why we lost most of our faithful.”

Turkey’s once-flourishing Greek community is fading away. The country is predominantly Muslim and led by a secular government that’s had a complicated relationship with the patriarchate.

If Turkish laws, demographics and attitudes aren’t changed, Bartholomew could ultimately be the last Patriarch of Constantinople.

“We are not all in despair for the future of our church,” Bartholomew said. “It is not easy, but it is not impossible.”

The Turkish government can veto any candidate put forward for the position of patriarch. And it requires the patriarch be a Turkish citizen. Bartholomew is, but most of those best qualified to succeed him are not.

So the government has proposed offering Turkish citizenship to Orthodox archbishops overseas. Several have applied; so far, none has been approved.

The Turkish government also refuses to recognize the title Ecumenical Patriarch, or Bartholomew’s role as an international religious leader.

Officially, he is viewed as a local bishop who leads a shrinking community of a few thousand Greek Orthodox citizens. Yorgo Stefanopulos is one of them. “I am a curiosity now in Turkey,” he said. “We used to be a minority; now we are a curiosity.”

Stefanopulos is an outspoken leader of Istanbul’s Greek community. About 50 years ago, that community numbered more than 100,000. Today, it’s probably less than 3,000.

He insists that decline was not accidental. Instead, he blames the Turkish government. Decades ago, he said, they targeted ethnic Greeks with nationalist policies, like wealth taxes, property seizures, and campaigns to speak only Turkish in the streets.

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