Ever decreasing circles?

Not much happening on Otagosh lately?  Yeah, I know.  It's been a time to focus on other things and cogitate on whether the enterprise is worth pursuing, and if so, where to from here...  and to be honest, it's been great to just set the blog to one side for a while and get on with other stuff.

I intend Otagosh to continue, but a bit of a "freshen up" probably wouldn't hurt.  It's amazing that so many people (apparently including even you, gentle reader) still bother to check the blog out, and presumably find the material here of some interest.  The original focus of my obsession - the ongoing, god-forsaken soap opera of the Armstrong sect(s) - has long since waned; though it's hard not to want to sneak a peek, as Lot's better-half did, back to the devastation from time to time.  Those who ignore history...

In more recent times, fueled by an irrational desire to "do" theology - and acquire some basic insight into the field of biblical studies (minus the delusions that came with the funda-literalist package) - the focus turned from the shattered Empire to wider concerns.  Now that I have an impressive looking piece of paper to prove that I'm not a complete doofus in that domain, and in the refreshing absence of slave-driving university staff wielding whips and deadlines, it may be time to tweak things here a bit.

So, we'll see where it leads.

Fair trade for a Fair Go

It's good to read Tim Bulkeley's piece on Fair Trade, and a reminder to those of us who live in affluent countries that the rest of the world deserves a "fair go" too. 

More years ago than I care to remember I got collared into helping set up a local Trade Aid shop and trust (since deceased) in Upper Hutt along with - among others - an indomitible little Irish woman named Orleen.  Quite an experience, in which I learned that the best of intentions are still no reason not to stick to the day job!  Shops are usually both managed and staffed by volunteers, and that makes for an interesting demographic cross section. Green Party members may recollect that the late Rod Donald was a driving force behind Trade Aid before entering parliament. These days fair trade has moved out into the mainstream.  No longer do you have to go looking for a Trade Aid outlet (or its equivalent in other countries) in an unfashionable suburb.  Leading cafes proudly strut their ethical coffee-buying virtues, and the Fairtrade logo can be found on shelves in major supermarkets.  Doing your bit for economic justice has never been so simple.

Tim says it well: Fair trade is a Christian issue.  Justice is the root of justification, the imperative that flows from the indicative, and especially so for those who want to be known as Christians.  Good on ya Tim.

Dumb sheep? Doh!

Clawing through the bloated coverage of the Rugby World Cup in today's Herald on Sunday in the hope of finding something else to divert them, readers may have been surprised to find that "Bible believing" Christians featured in an unflattering report on research from the University of Edinburgh.

"The more religious you are, the less likely you are to be intelligent..."

Say what?!

"...Christians - particularly fundamentalists who believe the Bible is God's word - have a lower IQ than those who are less religious."

A Kiwi professor who participated in the research notes: "If you believe in religion, you haven't really questioned things."  Um...

The head of theology at Auckland University, Elaine Wainwright, seems less than convinced, though she would be, wouldn't she?

If I was the Herald journalist, I'd be pounding on Brian Tamaki's door for a comment, but I suppose it isn't worth the hassle, what with the body guards and all, so dear Abby took the soft option and found a more conventional bishop.  Perhaps Abby doesn't realise that, excluding Tamaki (who was ordained a 'bishop' by American 'youth specialist' Eddie Long) there are two Auckland bishops, one Anglican, one Catholic.  Which is Patrick Dunn?  She doesn't seem to think it's important for us to know that (he's the Catholic one).  Dunn himself seemed unable to respond in a coherent way, stating that the study's findings are "a bit hilarious."

"However, he did agree that less intelligent people of all faiths tended to be more fundamental in their thinking, 'whether they claim to be Christians or atheists or Muslims or whatever'."

Cold comfort your bishopness, cold comfort.

The actual research, shorn of journalistic 'gee-whiz', might make interesting reading.  If there is a negative correlation between faith and intelligence, it might have more to do with head-in-the-sand dogmatism (the fundamentalist's playpen concept of 'strong faith') rather than a sense of the divine.

But that hardly lets Dunn off the hook, does it?

Teacher teach thyself

By profession I'm a teacher.  This week I found myself discussing the characteristics of legend and myth with students. Nothing too weighty or profound... we'd read the story of the Four Dragons, and then the traditional Maori tale of Rahi.  What are the indicators that tell us that stories like these, while immense good fun, are not meant to be taken as wooden fact?

You don't need to be an adult to work out the basics for yourself.  Stories like these provide colourful explanations for how something firmly anchored in the real world came into being.  The great rivers of China are no myth, but compassionate, talking dragons are.  Ki-o-rahi is a very real game, with traditional Maori roots, but a giant manned kite which carries a payload of moa eggs is just a tad less credible.  I even scrawled up the word aetiology on the whiteboard.  Not that I expect anyone in the class will remember it, but on the other hand why dumb things down?

We expect young people to recognise genres as a basic competency.  Star Trek, Pecos Bill, Gilgamesh: we'd all be impoverished if they disappeared.  They capture our imaginations and take us places where hair-shirted literalist fact fanatics fear to go. So why won't fundamentalists recognise them in the Bible?  Why can't they appreciate them for what they are, rather than trying to make them into what they're not?

Dunno.  It took me long enough to wise up, so what can I say?

Ah, whaddatheheck... anyone wanna make up a ki-o-rahi team?




(Wanna see how the game looks when the big blokes play?)

Who's been a busy boy?

Just when you thought "Packatollah Dave" had deservedly disappeared off the radar screen completely... Seems he's been strutting his stuff in Jerusalem.

Big Dave's "VIP welcome in Jerusalem included a private tour of the Knesset arranged by his host, M.K. Dr. Einat Wilf, a member of the Knesset's Foreign Affairs and Defense, Education and House committees. The two then met for an in-depth discussion of conditions in the Middle East and surrounding regions."

Wilf is obviously dosing up on the "stupid pills" which Stan Rader famously denied ingesting on 60 Minutes circa 1980. Much good may it do him and other doofuses in Israel who are pandering to the delusions of the self-proclaimed apostle.

Ghost writing Paul

Paul: The Lost Epistles, Robert M. Price, 2011.

There are only seven letters that are widely recognised as coming from the pen of Paul.

1 & 2 Timothy, Titus, Ephesians, Colossians, 2 Thessalonians?  Forget it.

If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, Paul should have felt greatly flattered.

But what do we Christians do about the pseudo-Pauline stuff?  Maybe we could find a kinder term; deutero-Pauline maybe, and hope nobody in the pews catches on...

Or attribute them to a "Pauline school", of which, alas, no evidence exists other than wishful thinking.

Then again, to think outside the square, we could take them as a precedent, and cook up a few more.  In fact, it wouldn't be hard to improve on some parts of the original product.  Who, after all, has any idea what Paul is beating his gums on in Romans; sixteen chapters of theological quicksand where obscurity parades - in the minds of systematic theologians at least - as profundity unparalleled.

Enter Robert M. Price with some newly 'discovered' Pauline letters.  There's the Iconian correspondence, a letter to the Beroeans, another to the Milesians... you get the picture.  Fourteen documents in all including - wait for it - a Pauline apocalypse.

Now, to be clear, Bob isn't trying to pull the wool over the sheeple, he's making a point.  The result however is much more than a pastiche, it actually works really well!

The significant question is whether he's done anything different to the faceless imitators who gave us the canonical pretenders.  Well, yes, in one respect anyway; Bob's pseudonymous offerings are clearly fictive. Though he knows how to string us along in his introduction (which is worth the price of the book by itself),  we know better from the outset thanks to a nod and a wink.

It's an endearingly cheeky initiative.  But how would you describe the resulting material?  Fiction?  In which case, what about Colossians, Ephesians and 1 Timothy?

Thus far only available in a Kindle edition, this is a diverting read.  Both great fun and provocative.  And for around $5 for an instant download, unmissable.

Sunday Morning Comedy Hour

Channel surfing this morning I landed on Prime's paid religious programming, and lo, there was Richard Ames of the Living Church of God prattling on about "strategies to overcome stress." I made the error of taking my finger off the button for a moment to wallow in the deja vu.

It'll come as no surprise to readers who know about the LCG and its Tomorrow's World broadcast to hear that Tricky Dick had isolated exactly seven surefire strategies, seven being a biblical number and all.  No surprise either that he puttered through a few choice proof texts per strategy, to demonstrate just how relevant the Good Book is on personal health issues.

It was all pretty much par for the course - the usual recycled scripts that LCG and cognate groups have been using for decades.  To be honest, I was paying more attention to the tacky graphics than the "same old, same old" as Ames launched into strategy two (exercise regularly!) when the appropriate proof text flashed up on the screen.  He had just been mentioning the value of regular walking for older folk.  Now that's a fine bit of advice, but hardly something you could 'prove' from scripture. right?

Wrong.  The NKJV verse (1 John 2:6) flashed up and off before I quite realised what was happening.

Well, land sakes...  A quick check of the program on their website reveals that Ames did use the word metaphor just before, but even so this is sailing perilously close to the exegetical wind, even for the LCG.

But, how many viewers would care?  Immediately following on from Tomorrow's World was a homegrown muggerchurch megachurch ministry that made the unanimated Ames look like a fossil.  First and foremost these guys are salesmen, each with their own distinctive, well-practised patter. Sunday morning's comedy may come in multiple genres, but regardless, accuracy or integrity seem to be the last thing on anyone's mind.