With no apologies

I've never quite worked out how mature, sensible people can indulge in the mind games of apologetics.  It's a dismal pursuit.  First you fix on a conclusion to your taste, then stack the evidence in its favour, and proceed to defend it tooth and claw against all comers.

Schweitzer had something relevant to say here.

Because I am devoted to Christianity in deep affection, I am trying to serve it with loyalty and sincerity.  In no wise do I undertake to enter the lists on its behalf with the crooked and fragile thinking of Christian apologists, but I call on it to set itself right in the spirit of sincerity with its past and with thought in order that it may thereby become conscious of its true nature.

Albert Schweizer in Out of My Life and Thought: An Autobiography.

Questioning Dogma

Sharp criticism of dogmas is to be preferred in every case to total indifference, since the latter does not even pay them the honor of taking them seriously.

Bernhard Lohse in A Short History of Christian Doctrine

On snarkiness in diverse places

One of these days I'm going to learn not to respond to a comment on an apologetics blog.

For some reason unknown to me Thom Stark is on a charm offensive over at Matt and Madeleine Flannagan's blog. It's all apologies, hugs and sweet reconciliation (well, sort of.)  An aside by Matt, however, left me puzzled.

Thom, Gavin is just showing how nasty the NZ theological scene can be. I did my PhD at Otago and some people still there have a snark reflex reaction towards conservatives. I suspect its more about me than it is about you.

Yup, that's his take on this post.  Proof, if any more was required, that hardline Reformed folk have a severely limited appreciation of humor.

Not that I deny the occasional descent into snarkiness. Apologetics tends to do that to me...  As Matt writes of himself, "I just call it as I see it."

But Matt has a long memory.  To my protestation that I've never been part of an Otago cabal, he rejoins that I was a contributor on the now defunct Dunedin School blog which published some "lovely stuff" about him.

Well, to that I plead guilty. I was invited by Deane to post there, though as with Matt, our only contact has ever been virtual.  Whether Matt wants to call me a liar or not, as he now infers, his name didn't come up once, to the best of my recollection, during that time.  My total contribution there was perhaps five posts, none of which, I believe, mentioned Matt at all.  Later Deane and others based in Dunedin decided to crop the posts and refocus on "reception history,"  and I was left with but one post flapping in the cool Dunedin breeze (on the meaning of the term 'evangelical'.)  Shortly thereafter, sadly, the plug was pulled completely.  At no stage, as far as I'm concerned, was that blog intended to be a "snark reflex reaction to conservatives" any more that Matt's blog is intended as a "snark reflex reaction" to mainstream biblical studies.

Now consider the tone of Matt's further response.

But I am sure you really don’t have any issue with me at all this is all just coincidence and it’s a mistake to see any of this as evidence of some kind of hostility towards me at all... try reading what people actually write it’s a lot more sensible than attacking straw men)... But I am sure this [is] all a coincidence as well. When the same authors try and draw attention to Stark[']s illtempered comments about me, that’s a coincidence as well. There is not a group of theologians at Dunedin in Otago who write snarky stuff about Conservative theologians like me, nor do people associated with this group right [sic] nasty stuff about me designed [to] ridicule me and denigrate my scholarly credentials, it’s all just a coincidence.

Clearly Matt is himself a master of the genre.

A 13 year old deals to Harold Camping

There it is, in the pages of the venerable Otago Daily Times no less.  A 13 year old high school student puts Harold Camping in his place.  Kind of makes you optimistic about the up 'n coming generation...

Don't mess with Thom

Apologists have long been used to an easy run when it comes to delivering their comedy lines with a straight face. Who's willing to challenge them? Most of those who can and should simply shrug their shoulders. They're crazies, right?  So why bother.

That's a really bad move.  It leaves the apologists crooning to their home-crowd admirers.  See, we're right, 'cos nobody can answer our talking points.

Then along came Thom.

Thom Stark, I think it'd be fair to say, doesn't suffer fools gladly.  When braying jackasses set out to defend themselves against the indefensible, Thom doesn't sit back and mutter ineffectually to himself... he picks up the proverbial jawbones of said asses and lays lustily into them with unrelenting point-by-point refutation.

And - hallelujah! - he has a sense of humor too.

Yes, there are those who take offence at Thom's style. But then, as someone recently put it, pouting about Thom's 'direct' approach is a bit rich when these same aggrieved apologists are happy to think of Yahweh as a righteous murderer of the innocent.

Thom is the author of The Human Faces of God, my nomination for the best biblical studies book of 2010.  And don't overlook his free book-length review of Paul Copan's hugely flawed Is God a Moral Monster.

A kindly word of advice to Matt Flannagan.  If you want to take him on, then you'd best do your homework thoroughly, and even then I'd definitely think twice...

Just ask Richard Hess.

Chalcedonian Pepper

Spill the pepper over your poached eggs, as I did recently, and you're likely to have a "stimulating" breakfast.  I keep going back to John Shuck's blog to see what havoc he's causing in the Presbyterian digestive tract, and am rarely disappointed.

Presbyterians. Strange folk. Calvin and the school of hard Knox.  You probably haven't (ahem) noticed, but this blog tends to be somewhat unaffirming of Reformed theology in general.  If any tradition needs a hefty dose of prophetic irritation, Presbyterianism has to be somewhere near the top of the list.

And prophetic irritation has indeed been showered upon them.  Lloyd Geering in New Zealand is the country's highest profile theologian; that fact being a source of chagrin to fundamentalists and certain Otago theology faculty members alike.

Shuck seems a kindred spirit.  He has some provocative things to say about a "hold the line" article appearing in a US church publication.  Here's a forkful of that particular egg 'n toast:

Presbyterians believe that Jesus Christ is "fully human and fully divine, one person in two natures, without confusion and without change, without separation and without division." This statement dates all the way back to the fifth century (451 to be exact) and is known as the Chalcedonian Definition.

How many Presbyterians do you know who are Chalcedonian divas?  In fact, how many would really know what the word Chalcedonian even refers to?  No wonder Shuck says, "I strongly resist those blanket statements. It doesn't relate so much to the content of what the authors or editors might believe, it is the assumption that everyone believes or should believe these things."

Then the top of the pepper shaker topples and the condiment is upended...

That statement from 451 doesn't even make logical sense. It is a contradiction... This statement from 451 was a political compromise. It isn't a statement of absolute truth or Divine proclamation.

Human beings decided this. Whether the means of decision were violent, manipulative, or a democratic vote, human beings made it up... They didn't all agree. There were losers. There were people who didn't win "the vote" that day. Were they wrong just because their view didn't win the day? ... I think we need to know how our ancestors wrestled with decisions. We can respect their efforts. We can criticize their efforts. We can learn from their process and their decisions. We can honor our tradition but we are not beholden to their provisional conclusions.

Shuck finishes by asking two questions about things like creeds.

Are they
1. statements of belief to which we must adhere or
2. are they streams of tradition from which we are free to learn?

Are they
1. tests of faith or
2. testimonies to faith?

 Good questions for all Christians - not just Presbyterians - to ponder.

How to say "Otagosh"

Yeah, I know this has been tormenting a lot of readers, how the heck do you say that?  And no, it's definitely not Greek!

Kiwis have a head start here, for everyone knows how to say Otago, the name of a sizeable slab of the South Island. Oh-tar-go. I believe it is an Anglicization of the Maori word "Otakou," the original meaning of which might possibly have been "red earth."

I know what you're thinking; how meaningful, what huge theological potential!  Red earth - Adam, gosh - euphemism for deity... sadly, no such profundity was intended; when I began this blog I was starting out in theological studies through the University of Otago. A colleague commented 'oh gosh!' (doubtless wondering at my slender link to sanity in studying a subject of no practical use.)  Sooo... I bunged the two words together: Otago and gosh. Hence Otagosh (Oh-ta-gosh.)

In that it's an invented word however, it does help out directing folk to exactly the right place when they google it, regardless of pronunciation!

On a tangent, three Otagosh posts made the latest [ad hoc] Christianity podcast list, one of which got a passing mention on the audio ("typical Otagosh"? Obviously I'm getting far too predictable.) The podcast itself is a long one, chewing up the best part of an hour with good-natured banter, but if you're a biblioblog junkie, well hey, so what?