Do you Speak Biblical or Christianese?

Ok, I admit it I was bored and didn't fancy starting cooking dinner yet, but anyway, while pottering around the internet I decided to check an online Bible to see how many of the common Christian one liners are actually quoted from the Bible. So as not to get sucked into the vortex of various translation arguments, I checked in a couple of versions, the NIV, KJV and the CEV (really, is there any more pointless discussion within Christianity?).

• "simple faith" - none at all
• "all you need is faith" - nope that's not there either
• "childlike faith" - quess what, zero again

I admit that I have deliberately picked on some of the vacuous phrases I have heard, phrases that I have long thought evasive of the reality of following the precepts of Jesus of Nazareth. There is nothing simple about faith in my experience, it is full of doubt and questions - if you have never doubted then I would contend you are either dead, in denial or just plain lying. I sometimes wonder if when people talk about "simple faith" they use it as an excuse not to engage with the Bible in a mature, meaningful way and thus continue with a simpleton's faith.

Faith is also clearly not all you need in following the revolutionary Jesus, works and social awareness are part and parcel of the teachings of Jesus. To preach about the "full gospel" and ignore the Gospel's calls for social, racial and economic change is to fall short of your own claims, let alone the requirements of Jesus. Faith without works is dead and thus not the faith of Jesus.

With "childlike faith" we often take the image of the sweet little trusting child as our image of such faith, rather than the more usual child you see in the streets, constantly bugging their parents with the question "why?". Mrs Velkyal works with 3 to 6 year old kids and some the questions they come out with are remarkable, and reveal the true nature of a human child with a thirst for knowledge. Children don't just accept, they dig, search, experience and challenge everything, do we?

An American Question

With the never ending furore about healthcare in the United States, it seems to me that a fundamentally American question is being avoided entirely in this debate. It is a question which goes to the very heart of what many perceive to be the American psyche, a question which, if you believe some sections of the populace, is the most important question any American can ask of themselves.

The question is simply this, “what would Jesus do”?

Yet it seems that in this most devout and openly religious country that nobody on any side of the political spectrum is prepared to ask that question. What would Jesus do about healthcare reform in the United States in the 21st century?

Firstly on the question of requiring the right insurance before getting healthcare, I am reminded of the story where Jesus makes a scourge and drives the money changers from the precincts of the Temple. A quick reminder for those of you who haven’t read the Bible, or those of you who think the God of the Old Testament is where it is at. The Temple in Jesus’ time required pilgrims to change imperial coins for those acceptable in order to pay for temple ceremonies, Jesus takes exception at the money changers extorting the people for profit, when, as he says, “it is written, My house shall be called a house of prayer but you have made it a den of thieves”.

I think here that Jesus would accept that healthcare has to be paid for, but would he approve of the extortionate premiums placed on receiving that healthcare? Would he approve of families paying thousands of dollars a year in insurance payments and then when they get sick they are asked to pay some more? Was the insurance they had paid into for all those years insufficient to cover the bills? Or is it more likely that Jesus would make for himself a scourge and drive the extortionate insurers from the market place?

One of the arguments I hear quite often against reforming health insurance is that it is wrong for hard working, well off, people to pay more in order to subsidize the poor and less fortunate. Does Jesus have anything to say in response to this? Well I think he does, if the parable of the sheep and the goats is any indicator of his view on how to treat the poor and less fortunate. Again a paraphrased refresher, Jesus is talking about the end of days when he comes to judge the living and the dead, separating all of humanity as being either sheep or goats – the sheep go to heaven, while the goats don’t.

To recognize a sheep is really easy, a sheep is the person in his Sunday best, driving a fancy car to an expensive church, fronted by a handsomely paid pastor and his ever so demur wife…oh wait, sorry I said I would stick to what Jesus himself did and said. A sheep then is someone who came to the sick and healed them (notice there is nothing about asking to be paid for an essentially humanitarian act), someone who fed the hungry, clothed the naked, someone who saw the human value in every single person regardless of economic well being. Jesus claims then that to treat the poor with value, to provide for their needs is a Christian duty, to ignore the needs of the poor and less fortunate is to ignore the needs of Jesus himself.

Now the questions come flying, what about the people who don’t work, who abuse the system, who are illegal immigrants, who, who, who? Questions that sound so much like Peter at the end of John’s Gospel, asking what would happen to the disciple “whom Jesus loved”, and being given the reply “what is that to you? Follow me”. Yes people will abuse any system put in place, whether a purely free market, or whether strictly socialist, it is human nature, but if you are one of the millions of Americans who claims to be a Christian and takes the ideals and teachings of Jesus seriously, then what would Jesus say to you?

Perhaps it is time in this debate, in this “nation under God” to take a step back from entrenched positions and ask that very simple question:

What would Jesus do?

To See or Not to See, that is your choice.

Ever think the world is going nuts? Most days there is something in the news which makes me shake my head in wonder at the insanity of people, today's nugget of nonsense comes from Dorset in England, where an Orthodox Jewish couple are claiming that motion sensors to control lighting are a contravention of their human rights and thus constitute religious discrimination. Their reasoning being that as Orthodox Jews they may not use lights or other electrical equipment on the Sabbath.

The motion sensors are to be installed in an effort to stop lights being left on, and thus lessen waste. The couple have offered to pay for the installation of an override switch, though as the lights are in the hallway, does this not infringe on the human rights of the majority in the holiday complex to see where they are going when it is dark? Perhaps instead of an override switch they could buy everyone else torches?

I am not quite sure exactly what exegetical and hermeneutical loops they are having to jump through in order to work out that God is anti seeing where you are going, but this kind of Pharisaical nonsense is nothing new - after all in the Gospels it is recorded that the religious leaders of the day objected to the disciples of Jesus picking ears of corn on the Sabbath and also to his healing a man with a shrivelled hand, to which he responded:

"I ask you, which is lawful on the Sabbath: to do good or to do evil, to save life or to destroy it?"

Such motion sensors may not save the planet in and of themselves, but if a situation arose which would endanger the live of another resident on the Sabbath, would it not be better to think of the many rather than insisting on religious elitism?

Patron Saints

Whilst thinking random thought on the plane from Paris to Prague last night, it hit me that of the 6 nations in the British Isles (that the Scots, Irish, Welsh, Cornish, Manx and English for those who don't know what I am talking about), only one is actually from that nation. The saints are as follows:

Scotland - St Andrew, brother of Saint Peter therefore Jewish
Ireland - St Patrick, either from Scotland or Wales
Wales - St David, actually from Wales!
Isle of Man - St Maughold, an Irishman
Cornwall - St Piran, another Irishman
England - St George, a Roman born in Palestine

Perhaps it would be better to have patron saints who were actually from the nations they purport to represent? May I suggest the following:

Scotland - St Mungo, also known as Kentigern, founder of Glasgow
Ireland - St Aidan, the man that converted the Northumbrians
Isle of Man - erm, any suggestions
Cornwall - St Geraint, one time King of Dumnonia which included Cornwall
England - St Cuthbert, quite possibly the holiest Englishman in history

Just some thoughts/

Chapterandversianity

Saint Paul wrote letters, David wrote poems and songs, Solomon wrote proverbs and the occassional saucy love song, none of them wrote chapters and verses.

Yes chapters and verses are useful in that they make reading a memorising texts easier, however I would suggest that they actually detract from the original meanings of the texts and create lazy thinking Christians who can quote chapter and verse for every situation but are still out of touch with both God and the world around them.

The very basis of the hermeneutical circle is that we can only understand the parts of a text by understanding the whole, and by then understanding the parts we achieve a greater understanding of the whole, and so the cycle goes.

By relying on a system of chapters and verses which most certainly were not in the mind of the original authors, I fear we fail to fully grasp the whole of the texts we read and thus impair our understanding of the parts, and so the cycle of misunderstanding goes.

Conditional Christianity

Going back to this morning's broadcast on the World Service about praying at the pump, one of the people interviewed stated that the Bible says "ask and you will receive" and that it "really is simple". Yet in the very next sentence he claimed that "all you have to do is believe" - immediately placing a condition on on whether or not you receive what you ask for. Yet within the context of Luke 11, just after Jesus has taught the disciples how to pray there is no mention of "needing faith" but rather the focus is on how God is like a father who gives his people good things rather than bad.

Is prayer the solution?

Listening to the BBC World Service this morning and there was report about a group of Christians in America who have decided that the only solution to rising petrol prices is prayer. Sometimes I despair of Christians, though probably well meaning, who are incapable of analysing a problem and addressing the deeper roots rather than the symptons.

The increasing price of petrol across America is being portrayed as a threat, a crisis in the heart of the American way of life, yet the reality is that it is an opportunity. This is an opportunity for Christian people to lead American society by cutting back on car use, and by extension cut back the noxious fumes which are poisoning the very planet God called on mankind to care for.

Unfortunately all this little group have done is show themselves ignornant of the mechanics of the free market, which I am sure if asked they would claim to be dedicated supporters of, but also to show Christians in a bad light, yet again. If God is interested in the price of petrol in America, why is he not interested in the genocide in Darfur? Again priorities have become muddled in the minds of the believing public, God does not call his people to maintain a status quo which is choking his creation to death. A comment from an article in the Daily Telegraph quotes a member of this group as saying:

"The poor are really suffering from this crisis. This movement is giving people hope."

I would argue that this movement is giving people the wrong kind of hope, the delusional hope that God cares about the price of petrol - you would think that he has more pressing things on his mind right now. What the church needs to be doing is addressing the real root cause of this problem, which is people's slavish attachment to the motor car. The church should be at the very forefront of the Green movement, looking for ways to lessen our impact on the planet.

It is always easier to treat a sympton than a disease, if I have a headache I take a tylenol - but if the cause of that headache is a tumour then no matter how many tylenols I pop, I will die because I have failed to address the problem. Praying at the pump is mere tylenol for the spirit.