I've been rehearsing the reasons for giving the blog a break during Lent, and concluded that if they apply from Wednesday, then they actually apply now too....
1. Time: important stuff is being neglected, and spending an hour or so a day composing here and reading other people's stuff will yield a whole working weeks worth of time for Lent. I'm also ending up doing things late at night and playing catch-up a lot, which means there's too many plates spinning. This one can drop.
2. Vanity: it's nice to have a blog that people visit, and revisit. It's nice to get linked. It's nice to get comments. But if even 20% of my motivation for blogging is to get the approval and custom of others to bolster my fragile ego, then that's 20% too much. I imagine that's an under-estimate. Why else would I check the number of visitors on a daily basis?
3. This week there's been a sobering comparison between the number of followers I have on Twitter, and visitors to the blog, and the number of birthday cards which actually arrived. I'm poor at keeping in touch with people at the best of times, but I don't want to trade the few decent friendships I have for hundreds of acquaintances who, though it's nice to have them, didn't notice when I wasn't there before and won't remember if I'm not around in a few months. It's time to give time to the important stuff.
4. I don't actually process information properly any more. Every piece of news is potential blog fodder, rather than something I properly read/listen to. My concentration span is getting shorter - I can't sit through something as simple as the main BBC news without flicking through the red button and other channels. That's not something I want to continue - to work properly, to pay attention to my kids and my wife, to engage properly with God's world, I need to be able to concentrate, to listen, to take things seriously as they are not as things that I can use for a bit more blurb on here.
5. Compulsion: I enjoy blogging, but (this is partly vanity again) there's a compulsion to post things every day, to respond quickly to what's going on rather than reflecting at leisure. Richard Foster - my guru on spiritual disciplines - recommends that we fast from anything we sense is becoming a compulsion.
and the more I think about these things, the more it doesn't really make sense to wait until Wednesday. If they're valid, they're valid today. So I'm off until Easter, and we'll see what happens then.
Friday, February 12, 2010
Thursday, February 11, 2010
The Car in the Field is a Toyota
This is my sons favourite YouTube clip, though I must confess I've not shown him much on there. He's only really interested in stuff being blown up and knocked down.
The views expressed by the owner of the trebuchet are not necessarily those of this blog.
Our car is currently in for it's third unscheduled maintenance in 12 months. It's a Renault, in case you wondered. Perhaps using a medieval catapult to break up cars and charging to watch would enable the government to recover some of the costs of the car scrappage scheme.
The views expressed by the owner of the trebuchet are not necessarily those of this blog.
Our car is currently in for it's third unscheduled maintenance in 12 months. It's a Renault, in case you wondered. Perhaps using a medieval catapult to break up cars and charging to watch would enable the government to recover some of the costs of the car scrappage scheme.
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
Morality and Religion
The Telegraph picked up yesterday on a US study into morality and religion, which concluded that there was no difference in the moral codes of believers and atheists: "The research suggests that intuitive judgments of right and wrong seem to operate independently of explicit religious commitments." It's worth looking at this article in the Sydney Morning Herald by Mark Hauser, author of the study, which explains it in his own words but without so much technical language.
The main bulk of the journal study is a summary of other pieces of work, arguing that morality is essentially about co-operation within societies, and has a basis independent of religion.
The major new research cited is a 'moral sense test' sponsored by a department at Harvard University. It's summarised thus: in dozens of dilemmas, and with thousands of subjects, the pattern of moral judgments delivered by subjects with a religious background do not differ from those who are atheists, and even in cases where we find statistically significant differences, the effect sizes are trivial. I.e. there's no ethical difference between atheists and religious people. However the article goes on to mention an area where there is a significant difference (the willingness to die for others) and explains it away as 'this is what you'd expect religious people to say'. Isn't that just explaining away evidence that doesn't fit the theory? Perhaps I didn't follow that bit of the argument so well.
Reading the Morning Herald article, it seems that most of the moral examples chosen were around life and death, and how far is it permissible to sacrifice the wellbeing of some for the benefit of others. I did wonder how many people found themselves administering organ donations in real life. Is it a weakness in the study that it doesn't seem to deal with everyday morality: helping the neighbours, giving to charity, honesty with money, humility, keeping promises etc. etc. ? And is there a difference between what box you'll tick on a website and what you'll do when the situation is for real?
law and ethics: the article also argues that the legal status of a moral question (the one they cite is euthanasia) makes no difference to how it's percieved: law, as a formal moral system, can only provide specific guidelines for specific actions, but such knowledge fails to penetrate or alter our folk moral intuitions. At one level this seems to cut across policies like the tax allowance for married couples proposed by the Conservatives, as it won't change attitudes. I must admit that intuitively I can't get my head around this conclusion, and it is only based on a comparison over 1 issue between 2 nations, so the evidence base isn't exactly formidable. Does, for example, reclassifying drugs create a different moral climate around them. Or legalising abortion? Or banning hunting?
Questions
- is the universality of moral norms evidence for the existence of a universal conscience? Romans 2:15 argues that certain moral laws are 'written on our hearts' whether or not we believe in God.
- this is quite hopeful, in the sense that it means that religion/atheism doesn't have to be a dividing line when it comes to agreeing on moral norms within a society.
- in some quarters there seems to be an argument that you 'can't be good without God', though I must admit the only people I've heard this from are atheists, so I must be reading the wrong Christian websites. Or perhaps the right ones. This argument is clearly nonsense. However there is a claim in the Christian faith that opening your life to Jesus will change you for the better - it's there repeatedly in the Bible. It's a claim which rings hollow at times, and any church member will be reminded on a regular basis that the only pre-requisite for being a Christian is to be a sinner first. Here's the challenge: does it actually make a difference?
- what headline to use: "Atheists are just as good as religious people" or "Religious people are just as good as atheists"? There's plenty of stuff around inferring that people of faith are morally inferior to people without it. Stephen Fry's recent address at a debate on whether the church is a force for good provides some persuasive ammo for this one. For every Chairman Mao there's a Bin Laden, and vice versa.
- The conclusion that biology = morality is the conclusion you'd expect from a centre with a strong basis in evolutionary biology. There can't really be any other explanation, if your presuppostions are that evolutionary biology explains all the significant stuff about human behaviour. That doesn't mean the research is wrong, but it's a reminder that science operates within paradigms, as does faith.
- The actual study results don't seem to be in the public domain yet. As such it's not clear if there are any significant differences for particular religious groups, or whether everyone is in the same ethical boat. Lumping all 'religious' people together, like lumping all 'atheists' together, might mask important details. Or it might not.....!!!
- If morality is simply a feature of evolution, a fancy way of saying 'agreed principles', then does any language of, for example, 'rights' make sense. To talk about rights implies objective morality, that certain things are innately due to us as persons. But if morality is principally the way our co-operation as a human society has evolved, then aren't 'rights' a myth, a construct built on a moral intuition which has evolved, but could just as easily evolve away again?
Lots of questions, not many answers!
The main bulk of the journal study is a summary of other pieces of work, arguing that morality is essentially about co-operation within societies, and has a basis independent of religion.
The major new research cited is a 'moral sense test' sponsored by a department at Harvard University. It's summarised thus: in dozens of dilemmas, and with thousands of subjects, the pattern of moral judgments delivered by subjects with a religious background do not differ from those who are atheists, and even in cases where we find statistically significant differences, the effect sizes are trivial. I.e. there's no ethical difference between atheists and religious people. However the article goes on to mention an area where there is a significant difference (the willingness to die for others) and explains it away as 'this is what you'd expect religious people to say'. Isn't that just explaining away evidence that doesn't fit the theory? Perhaps I didn't follow that bit of the argument so well.
Reading the Morning Herald article, it seems that most of the moral examples chosen were around life and death, and how far is it permissible to sacrifice the wellbeing of some for the benefit of others. I did wonder how many people found themselves administering organ donations in real life. Is it a weakness in the study that it doesn't seem to deal with everyday morality: helping the neighbours, giving to charity, honesty with money, humility, keeping promises etc. etc. ? And is there a difference between what box you'll tick on a website and what you'll do when the situation is for real?
law and ethics: the article also argues that the legal status of a moral question (the one they cite is euthanasia) makes no difference to how it's percieved: law, as a formal moral system, can only provide specific guidelines for specific actions, but such knowledge fails to penetrate or alter our folk moral intuitions. At one level this seems to cut across policies like the tax allowance for married couples proposed by the Conservatives, as it won't change attitudes. I must admit that intuitively I can't get my head around this conclusion, and it is only based on a comparison over 1 issue between 2 nations, so the evidence base isn't exactly formidable. Does, for example, reclassifying drugs create a different moral climate around them. Or legalising abortion? Or banning hunting?
Questions
- is the universality of moral norms evidence for the existence of a universal conscience? Romans 2:15 argues that certain moral laws are 'written on our hearts' whether or not we believe in God.
- this is quite hopeful, in the sense that it means that religion/atheism doesn't have to be a dividing line when it comes to agreeing on moral norms within a society.
- in some quarters there seems to be an argument that you 'can't be good without God', though I must admit the only people I've heard this from are atheists, so I must be reading the wrong Christian websites. Or perhaps the right ones. This argument is clearly nonsense. However there is a claim in the Christian faith that opening your life to Jesus will change you for the better - it's there repeatedly in the Bible. It's a claim which rings hollow at times, and any church member will be reminded on a regular basis that the only pre-requisite for being a Christian is to be a sinner first. Here's the challenge: does it actually make a difference?
- what headline to use: "Atheists are just as good as religious people" or "Religious people are just as good as atheists"? There's plenty of stuff around inferring that people of faith are morally inferior to people without it. Stephen Fry's recent address at a debate on whether the church is a force for good provides some persuasive ammo for this one. For every Chairman Mao there's a Bin Laden, and vice versa.
- The conclusion that biology = morality is the conclusion you'd expect from a centre with a strong basis in evolutionary biology. There can't really be any other explanation, if your presuppostions are that evolutionary biology explains all the significant stuff about human behaviour. That doesn't mean the research is wrong, but it's a reminder that science operates within paradigms, as does faith.
- The actual study results don't seem to be in the public domain yet. As such it's not clear if there are any significant differences for particular religious groups, or whether everyone is in the same ethical boat. Lumping all 'religious' people together, like lumping all 'atheists' together, might mask important details. Or it might not.....!!!
- If morality is simply a feature of evolution, a fancy way of saying 'agreed principles', then does any language of, for example, 'rights' make sense. To talk about rights implies objective morality, that certain things are innately due to us as persons. But if morality is principally the way our co-operation as a human society has evolved, then aren't 'rights' a myth, a construct built on a moral intuition which has evolved, but could just as easily evolve away again?
Lots of questions, not many answers!
'Don't Go to Church Sunday'
A footnote on this old post about Back to Church Sunday:
Idea for next year 'Back to World Sunday', where churches close their services and Christians spend the day hanging out with their non-churchgoing friends.
Someone else has had the same idea: Don't Go To Church Sunday at the moment just seems to be a website with a few ideas. It isn't a massive site, just one page - here's a snippet:
Why?
- Because we should be more interested in being the church rather than going to church.
- Because we should be more concerned about people getting to know Jesus than keeping ‘church’ going the way it always has.
- Because there are more people who have never been to church in Britain than those who have.
the site lists a few ideas and examples from around the country. (Ht Evangelism UK). I don't know if there's any kind of organised campaign connected to it, there aren't any clues on Google, though there are 55 million results for 'don't go to church Sunday'.
Other benefits:
- cuts the carbon footprint of the congregation who would otherwise have driven in (ditto on heating an ancient building - plan DGTCS in mid-January for fuel efficiency).
- the vicar/minister gets a bit of a break. Not that I have a vested interest......
- giving everyone else a break who normally puts out chairs, makes coffee, sets up the building, plays music etc. etc.
Against
- it'll be the one Sunday in the year when several people walk in off the street, only to find the place closed.
- Mrs Miggins will still turn up to make the tea anyway, because that's what she's always done every Sunday since she took the job on . Actually, she could look after the folk who've come in off the street. Sorted.
- Several members will take the chance to try the new house church down the road, as they've spent so much time in church meetings that they don't have any non-Christian friends left to hang out with. They'll like it so much that you never see them again.
Idea for next year 'Back to World Sunday', where churches close their services and Christians spend the day hanging out with their non-churchgoing friends.
Someone else has had the same idea: Don't Go To Church Sunday at the moment just seems to be a website with a few ideas. It isn't a massive site, just one page - here's a snippet:
Why?
- Because we should be more interested in being the church rather than going to church.
- Because we should be more concerned about people getting to know Jesus than keeping ‘church’ going the way it always has.
- Because there are more people who have never been to church in Britain than those who have.
the site lists a few ideas and examples from around the country. (Ht Evangelism UK). I don't know if there's any kind of organised campaign connected to it, there aren't any clues on Google, though there are 55 million results for 'don't go to church Sunday'.
Other benefits:
- cuts the carbon footprint of the congregation who would otherwise have driven in (ditto on heating an ancient building - plan DGTCS in mid-January for fuel efficiency).
- the vicar/minister gets a bit of a break. Not that I have a vested interest......
- giving everyone else a break who normally puts out chairs, makes coffee, sets up the building, plays music etc. etc.
Against
- it'll be the one Sunday in the year when several people walk in off the street, only to find the place closed.
- Mrs Miggins will still turn up to make the tea anyway, because that's what she's always done every Sunday since she took the job on . Actually, she could look after the folk who've come in off the street. Sorted.
- Several members will take the chance to try the new house church down the road, as they've spent so much time in church meetings that they don't have any non-Christian friends left to hang out with. They'll like it so much that you never see them again.
Tuesday, February 09, 2010
St. Valentines Day Mass Exit
There are some special CofE resources for Valentines Day, which happens to fall on a Sunday this year (that was careless, I hope Sunday is ok*). Some of the ideas for marking this sound quite fun, but something is niggling me. Looking around the families at our church, there's probably a minority headed up by married couples who are both church members. Some are families where only one parent is a Christian, other are single parent families, some are couples with children who aren't married. So if we did anything Valentiney in a main service, it would be deeply uncomfortable for a large section of the church, so much so that they might even stay away.
We'll be picking up on a theme of love and relationships in our cafe service this Sunday, but trying to approach it from an angle that everyone can engage* with. Can a church (or any community) with a mixed economy of family structure celebrate marriage without that being uncomfortable for some? We provide overt support for marriage through things like our marriage preparation course (which seems to be accumulating 2 new couples a week at the moment), does overt support for single parents just come across as patronising, or are their places where this works well?
Of course we could make it really uncomfortable, and re-enact the life of St. Valentine himself. The legend has it that he was a priest imprisoned under Roman emperor Claudius for secretly marrying Christian couples. According to Wikipedia "this priest was condemned to death. He was beaten with clubs and stoned; when that didn't finish him, he was beheaded outside the Flaminian Gate." That could make for an interesting act of worship....
*sorry
We'll be picking up on a theme of love and relationships in our cafe service this Sunday, but trying to approach it from an angle that everyone can engage* with. Can a church (or any community) with a mixed economy of family structure celebrate marriage without that being uncomfortable for some? We provide overt support for marriage through things like our marriage preparation course (which seems to be accumulating 2 new couples a week at the moment), does overt support for single parents just come across as patronising, or are their places where this works well?
Of course we could make it really uncomfortable, and re-enact the life of St. Valentine himself. The legend has it that he was a priest imprisoned under Roman emperor Claudius for secretly marrying Christian couples. According to Wikipedia "this priest was condemned to death. He was beaten with clubs and stoned; when that didn't finish him, he was beheaded outside the Flaminian Gate." That could make for an interesting act of worship....
*sorry
Monday, February 08, 2010
Everybody needs an Alastair Campbell
Here's Alastair Campbell on the Andrew Marr show yesterday, defending Tony Blair as he did at the Iraq inquiry a few weeks ago. The cynic might say that Campbell has got to defend Blair because his own reputation is so closely linked to Blairs. But if it's closely linked, then that's mostly Alastair Campbell's own doing.
I'm still not sure about the truth of the decision to go to war in Iraq, but whatever the truth, I'm very impressed by Campbell's loyalty to his former boss. What does it do for you, I wonder, to have someone who is so committed to you personally, that they will defend you 100% when it would be much easier to step away and hang you out to dry? It reminds me a bit of Paul and Barnabas in Acts, where Barnabas effectively sponsors Paul and sticks up for him, when it clearly wasn't easy for the early church to accept this former hit-man into their fellowship (Acts 9:26). Would Paul have got very far without the 'son of encouragement' standing alongside him?
A loyal friend is a great gift. Especially one who is so loyal to you that s/he will defend you to the hilt in public, even if they're telling you in private that you're wrong. One of the things we mention in marriage prep (currently running at our local) is the need to stick up for each other: it can be really corrosive to a relationship if couples make fun of one another or run each other down in front of others. It's tough when there might be in-laws wanting to carry on 'claiming' you as one of them, rather than letting the new husband and wife make their new family unit their prime loyalty. But the marriage pledges are a declaration of absolute loyalty to one another, and that means presenting a united front to the world.
Campbell has taken so many punches for Blair that it's not surprising he struggles a bit now and again. Another part of the Marr interview touched on the difficulties of living in the public eye and staying in touch with reality. I hope for his sake that Campbell has some good mates too.
Fresh Expressions of Ten Pin Bowling
A church is planning to open and run a ten-pin bowling alley to help bring jobs to its local community.
Towy Community Church plans to lease the 2.7 acre site of the former St Ivel cheese packing plant in Johnstown from Carmarthenshire council.
The 12-lane arena would create up to 20 jobs and profits will help fund community projects on site, including a food bank and free debt counselling.
Pastor Mark Bennett said churches had to change to engage with communities.
"Churches have to change the way they operate," he said. "I mean, keeping their core identity but changing the package and really connecting with our communities in the 21st century. So we have to serve and be 'salt and light' in our communities and not just preach on a Sunday."
The church's Sunday services would also be held at the new site, along with its furniture recycling scheme for people suffering hardship, a 50 seat café, a conference centre and performing arts activities for teenagers.
full BBC report here. Ht Joe Haward.
Yesterday I read about a church which still has box pews, and the deadening effect that has on worship (update: there are 2 sides to every story - see first comment below), and a couple of weeks ago highlighted one which has converted its Methodist chapel into a soft play area and cafe. It's encouraging to see local churches engaging with their community and designing their use of space around that.
Maybe we need a deal with English Heritage that for every church we agree to preserve as a historic monument (which is effectively what current planning regs require) another church is given carte blanche to revamp its premises. At the moment its easier to start from scratch (as in the case above) than it is to start from historic premises: most of the ideas they're contemplating would be non-starters in pretty much every Anglican setting I know, because of the issues around buildings.
Which all brings me back (again) to George Lings concept of the '7 sacred spaces' and how local churches can re-engage with a model of 'place' which has many facets, rather than just of being a gathering place for public worship. In the example above, and the Methodist soft play area, you could argue that an 8th space has been added: space to play. That doesn't figure highly in monasticism (!), but perhaps play is just as sacred as work, study, eating and worship. Now if that was a planning requirement for new churches......
(Graham Tomlin has more thoughts on pews and church buildings. Welcome to the blogosphere Graham!)
Towy Community Church plans to lease the 2.7 acre site of the former St Ivel cheese packing plant in Johnstown from Carmarthenshire council.
The 12-lane arena would create up to 20 jobs and profits will help fund community projects on site, including a food bank and free debt counselling.
Pastor Mark Bennett said churches had to change to engage with communities.
"Churches have to change the way they operate," he said. "I mean, keeping their core identity but changing the package and really connecting with our communities in the 21st century. So we have to serve and be 'salt and light' in our communities and not just preach on a Sunday."
The church's Sunday services would also be held at the new site, along with its furniture recycling scheme for people suffering hardship, a 50 seat café, a conference centre and performing arts activities for teenagers.
full BBC report here. Ht Joe Haward.
Yesterday I read about a church which still has box pews, and the deadening effect that has on worship (update: there are 2 sides to every story - see first comment below), and a couple of weeks ago highlighted one which has converted its Methodist chapel into a soft play area and cafe. It's encouraging to see local churches engaging with their community and designing their use of space around that.
Maybe we need a deal with English Heritage that for every church we agree to preserve as a historic monument (which is effectively what current planning regs require) another church is given carte blanche to revamp its premises. At the moment its easier to start from scratch (as in the case above) than it is to start from historic premises: most of the ideas they're contemplating would be non-starters in pretty much every Anglican setting I know, because of the issues around buildings.
Which all brings me back (again) to George Lings concept of the '7 sacred spaces' and how local churches can re-engage with a model of 'place' which has many facets, rather than just of being a gathering place for public worship. In the example above, and the Methodist soft play area, you could argue that an 8th space has been added: space to play. That doesn't figure highly in monasticism (!), but perhaps play is just as sacred as work, study, eating and worship. Now if that was a planning requirement for new churches......
(Graham Tomlin has more thoughts on pews and church buildings. Welcome to the blogosphere Graham!)
Sunday, February 07, 2010
New Car for Christians Who Don't Want Friends
ht Jesus Needs New PR.
I'm guessing this only really works in London, or anywhere else where traffic speed and walking pace are roughly the same.
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