Mark, the Marys and (Colin) McCahon

On my first trip overseas (fatefully to New Zealand), I encountered and fell in love with the work of Colin McCahon. McCahon is an outstanding 20th century modernist painter, an art-world outsider obsessed with the NZ countryside and the Jesus story, often intermingling the two. Many of his paintings feature outsized texts overlaid across the canvass, often quotations from the Bible. One of my favourite works, however, is a “simple” composition of figures in a landscape:

Colin McCahon, The Marys at the Tomb, Auckand Art Gallery.

I revisited “The Marys at the Tomb” a week or so ago when I was back in Auckland for a family reunion. It’s compelling little picture, the angel’s pointing finger creating a marvellous diagonal, parallel with the windblown ti-trees on the horizon and in dramatic tension with the empty sarcophagus.

I have no idea which Gospel in particular, if any, McCahon had in mind when he painted it, but I like to think it was Mark’s. The final chapter of Mark’s story is an odd one. Unlike the other three Gospels, Mark has no Hollywood Ending. Yes, Jesus is resurrected, and Yes, this truth is announced to the disciples, but there is no scene in which he is reunited with his followers, relationships are restored, and everything is fine and dandy.

Instead, this is how Mark presents the events of Easter morning:

When the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices so that they might go to anoint Jesus’ body.Very early on the first day of the week, just after sunrise, they were on their way to the tomb and they asked each other, “Who will roll the stone away from the entrance of the tomb?”

But when they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had been rolled away. As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man dressed in a white robe sitting on the right side, and they were alarmed.

“Don’t be alarmed,” he said. “You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified. He has risen! He is not here. See the place where they laid him. But go, tell his disciples and Peter, ‘He is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you.’”

Trembling and bewildered, the women went out and fled from the tomb. They said nothing to anyone, because they were afraid. (Mark 16:1-8)

Trembling, bewilderment, fear. The end. No wonder that, from the early days of the church, writers have “supplemented” Mark by tacking on more “orthodox” conclusions.

But the oldest texts have the Marys, and the reader, confronted with not a happy ending but another beginning – off you go, back to Galilee! As Ched Myers stresses in his revolutionary commentary on Mark, Binding the Strong Man, Galilee is where the whole Jesus story begins. Mark’s Gospel is calling Jesus’ followers to embark on another stage in their discipleship, to begin following their (risen) Lord anew. Jesus is with then in a new way; the mistakes and betrayals of the past belong in the past; they can be left in the tomb. The Journey of discipleship goes on.

In McCahon’s painting, the Marys look less than thrilled by this wonderful, astonishing, confronting news. They look like they could do with a good rest, rather than an arduous trip. The central figure – Jesus’ mother? – is almost corpse-pale with sorrow, eyes dragged down by weeping now clouded with confusion, anxious mouth frozen in alarm. Yet she boldly stares the angel in the face. Maybe she will need a cup of tea first, but I can bet that she, and the others, with be on the road by lunchtime.

For the new Church Year (which counter-culturally begins at the end of November with the season of Advent), the set Gospel for Sunday readings is – you guessed it – Mark. It’s an appropriate one for us as, unexpectedly, we’re off to serve in another church. It’s good news – it’s a wonderful opportunity. It will also be (of course) very challenging. And it’s a bit sooner that we were expecting: some things we were working towards in our current parish haven’t come to fruition, and if they do, we won’t be around to see them. “He is not here,” says the angel.

And yet: “He has risen! He has risen!”

And it gets better: “He is going ahead of you. There you will see him, just as he told you.”

Time for a quick cuppa with Mary, then it’s time to pack for the trip. I am looking forward to this year of Mark.

Worship, movies and the eschaton

Click on the image for a larger version.

Recently we’ve been experimenting with showing movies as part of our experiential worship group. Not Christian movies – sadly, they’re too often badly done propaganda – but mainstream fare, as long as it’s honest about human life and shows a degree of spiritual sensitivity. They may be films with biblical parallels, or that deal with such theologically potent issues as forgiveness or hope or generosity.

Why movies (apart from being a good way to spend a Sunday night)? Too often, Christians see spirituality as something that happens in church, or associate it with rare “mountain top experiences” clearly sign-posted with “God at work”. My theory is that identifying spiritual significance in films about (relatively ordinary) life reminds us to be alert to the spiritual depths that can be found in mundane locations like family, community, work or love (if any of these are truly mundane).

We’ve found it useful to pose some questions to think about before we start the film, to prompt some healthy discussion afterwards. (“Does anyone in the film remind us of Jesus? How?” Is a good one.) And supply plenty of popcorn.

Here are four films we’ve watched, and some of the themes/questions they helped us explore.

Pleasantville

Two modern teenagers get transported into the world of a 1950s TV show where there is no conflict, passion or danger – until they arrive. It’s a fascinating exploration of the Garden of Eden story. What is lost and what is gained with human free will and “sin”?

Lars and the Real Girl

A shy young man believes that a life-size plastic doll is his “real” girlfriend. Instead of locking him up, his family – and church – love him back to reality, by loving and accepting her (the doll) too. What makes us worthy of love? What makes for community?

Stranger Than Fiction

A lonely tax-inspector discovers he is a character is someone else’s novel – and he needs to be killed off for the good of the plot. Questions concerning self-sacrifice, the “good death” and “why did Jesus have to die” loom large – one scene a virtual retelling of Jesus’ agony in the garden.

Rachel Getting Married

A troubled young girl comes home from rehab for the weekend to attend her sisters’ over-the-top wedding. The Prodigal Son in reverse (it’s the Good Sibling who gets the party), as well as many of Jesus’ banquet parables.

A grittier film than the others, it particularly spoke to me because of its eschatological overtones. The wedding is a musical, multicultural, gourmet extravaganza – one character perceptively compares it to heaven. Yet we discover that the former-addict sister was responsible for a devastating family tragedy that it becomes clear no one in the clan has escape from unharmed. In the midst of celebration, there is indelible sorrow and unhealed wounds.

I couldn’t help thinking of Revelation 21:3-4, where St John is writing about the life of the world to come – talking about the New Creation:

And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. ‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”

This is a fascinating passage. God’s people are pictured as about to enter into the indescribably glory of eternal life in God’s Kingdom, where all is joy and community and celebration. But what about the pain of the past, the injustice and hurt that these people have suffered – and inflicted? Our pain – accepted and dealt out to others – is part of our individual stories; it has helped make us who we are. In wiping away those tears, is God wiping away part of our identities? Without our damage, are we truly ourselves?

Deep stuff.

Apart from Rachel (lots of swearing and a bit of sex and violence), the other films are quite kid-friendly, though not particularly kid-engrossing. For family fare that’s still got some meat, try WALL-E or Toy Story 3. Cartoons as the new parables? Maybe.

Climate change, Creationism and conservatism

Why are so many conservative Christians (and no, that’s not the only sort there are) active deniers of man-made climate change? After all, the lifestyle changes that we’re encouraged to adopt to try to abate the worse effects of our impending climate crisis are things that Christians should be in favour of. They help the planet, they help the world’s poor, and they help our own discipleship.

One hot potato.

Thinking about this question recently – and becoming increasingly frustrated by it – I came up with this hypothesis:

A) Climate change [we'll assume we're talking about man-made CC from now on] is a “science” thing.

B) Many conservative Christians buy into the false dichotomy that science and religion are two opposing or contesting ways of explaining the world (in fact, they are complementary, except when science becomes muddied by ideological atheism).

C) Climate change belongs to a special subcategory of science things, “huge, one-off, word-changing science things that cannot be tested in a laboratory”.

D) One of the few other science things in that category is evolution. (Many/most/lots of – it’s debatable) conservative Christians do not believe in evolution.

QED: conservative  Christians are at least ill-disposed towards accepting the truth of man-made climate change.

A bit too facile to be correct? Maybe, but I love it when a good hypothesis starts amassing some supporting evidence, don’t you?

Earlier this week, when a discussion of government policy on a friend’s Facebook page inevitably turned to climate change, “Kellie” (not her real name) posted the following (if reading the entire comment is too much skip to the sentence I’ve highlighted red):

I confess that it is not at all obvious to me that climate change is human-induced. Did God not tell Job that he makes the rule for the wind and the rain? Has he not promised that so long as the earth shall endure, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease? So why should we so readily believe scientists when they tell us that human carbon dioxide emissions are actually controlling the wind and the rain? Or that the earth is soon going to be too hot to sustain life? Mainstream science is based on an evolutionary understanding of our planet, and that, in itself, should be enough for any Christian to at least question the conclusions and predictions we are being presented with in the climate change debate.

Some of the questions that burn in my mind: Why would God have created us to breathe out carbon dioxide if it is indeed a pollutant, as many scientists suggest? Why would a ‘pollutant’ be so beneficial to the abundant plant life with which God endowed the earth? Why would God have given us such a wealth of coal if it were not to be used for our benefit? Are we not, in effect, throwing this gift back in God’s face right now? Are we not in danger of being like the servant who buried his talent for fear of losing it when we shrink from using the wonderful resources God has given us for our benefit? Why do we ignore all the scientific evidence that is contrary to theories of man-made climate change?

Our world is deteriorating – the Bible tells us it is groaning under the weight of sin. Reducing carbon dioxide emissions is not going to change that. We certainly have been given a huge responsibility in caring for this wonderful planet, but for my part, I find the suggestion that human activity can influence global weather patterns anti-biblical, and the science against man-made climate change very compelling.

I’m not going to pick holes in “Kellie’s” theology here. (Well, just a little one: see para 3. If human’s can’t influence the fate of our planet in a negative way, and thus cause climate change, then why has God asked us to care for the planet – surely our positive efforts will be equally futile?) But I’m fascinated to find here the assumption that science is suspect because it “is based on an evolutionary understanding of our planet”. Strangely, this suspicion does not apply to “science” when supporting the climate sceptics’/deniers’ cause…

I also had my attention drawn to a recent comment on Crikey blog The Pollbludger. “Dave” writes:

I spend quite a bit of time driving as part of my job, so I occasionally succumb to listening to the “shock jock” brigade on [Sydney radio stations] 2GB & 2UE…

I do notice of late a new intrusion into the debate along the lines of “God is in control, he will not permit global warming, did not create the world that way, etc., etc.” Is the Hillsong Church marshalling to assist it’s Lib allies in NSW?…

“Dave” may be drawing too long a bow to incriminate Hillsong here. I certainly couldn’t find any instructions from Bobbie and Brian Houston to their followers to deny climate change on their website. However, a conservative Christian leader of a different stripe – Cardinal George Pell – has in the past made no secret of his climate scepticism, with comments like this:

Some of the hysteric and extreme claims about global warming are also a symptom of pagan emptiness, of Western fear when confronted by the immense and basically uncontrollable forces of nature. Belief in a benign God who is master of the universe has a steadying psychological effect, although it is no guarantee of Utopia, no guarantee that the continuing climate and geographic changes will be benign. In the past pagans sacrificed animals and even humans in vain attempts to placate capricious and cruel gods. Today they demand a reduction in carbon dioxide emissions.

While I have no idea where Pell stands on evolution, certainly his reference to “a benign God who is master of the universe” is a reference, for those who have ears, with distinct creation theology (if not creation-ist) overtones…

All this bears further investigation. Especially when that there is a symposium on climate change and religion coming up in Melbourne in October. I certainly won’t have the time or capacity to work up any research myself, but drafting the questions that need to be answered and refining the hypothesis could well be done in time. Would love to hear any thoughts and opinions.

PS It turns out I’m not the only one thinking along these lines. There is also some good stuff in this issue of Sojourners magazine for people wanting ammunition against sceptics of various religious flavours – or none.

Worship, the body and symbolic action

As part of the 5pm service I’m involved in, we regularly feature some form of experiential worship activity. For example, in a service on the Holy Spirit, we took four large electric fans, set them up facing each other, and laid out a circle of red tea-light candles to connect them (red apparently being the HS’s favourite colour). At the appropriate time, we turned on the fans and invited participants to step one by one into the circle to experience the Spirit /wind / breath of God (the word for Spirit, wind and breath being the same in Hebrew and in Greek). You can see some more examples of these activities here.

So far, no one has asked for a theological justification for experiential worship. But in the spirit of 1 Peter 3:15, here are two reasons why I believe this style of church is thoroughly biblical.

The significance of the body

Experiential worship activity is a vindication of the theological significance of the body. We are called to “love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength” (Mark 12:30, quoting Deuteronomy 6:4-5). Strength in this context means force of will rather than physical force, but the repetition of four terms “heart”, “soul”, “mind” and “strength” is designed to communicate “the whole person”, of which the body is an essential element. And unlike the ancient Greeks, whose thinking is still so influential in the Western tradition, the Hebrews had no conception of the human person as divided into body and soul – to be human is to be a unified, embodied, physical-and-spiritual whole.

This understanding can be seen as receiving God’s theological endorsement in the incarnation. God becomes human, fully human. Contrary to the claims of the Docetists, Jesus’ physicality wasn’t an illusion, but the real thing. He got hungry and thirsty, tired and sad, and he suffered and died. He also tended to the bodily needs of others – indeed, he drew little if any distinction between physical and spiritual when it came to his work of healing and restoration (see Mark 2:1-11 where healing a paralysed man and forgiving his sins are presented as two aspects of the one act).

Throughout the New Testament, the body continues to be a powerful metaphor for the church (eg 1 Cor 12:12-27), a complex of meanings incorporating mutual interdependence and respect, diversity of gifts, service of Christ and even a sense of incorporation into the Godhead.

The rediscovery of symbolic acton

As well as a vindication of the body, interactive worship is also heir to the tradition of symbolic action seen in the prophets of the Old Testament and in the ministry of Jesus.

Jeremiah smashes a pottery jug  (Jer 19 ff.) as a prediction of the ruin that will come to Judah and Jerusalem because of national apostasy (the Hebrew words for “ruin” and “jug” sound similar – God seems to go in for this kind of wordplay).

Thousands of years before Close Encounter of the Third Kind, Ezekiel fills his living room with a scale model, not of Devils Tower National Monument, but the walls of Jerusalem under siege (Ezekiel 4 ff.).

Prophetic action can be messy. It may also make people think you are crazy.

The prophet then acts out the tragic coming fate of the people, sympathetically bearing their sins and living on the culturally unclean and rationed food that would be theirs in exile.

Theologian N. T. Wright finds strong similarities between these actions and Jesus’ inauguration of the meal of the church at the Last Supper. Such combinations of violent action and commentary, he says, “carry prophetic power, effecting the events (mostly acts of judgment) which are then to occur.” (Quoted in Melvin Tinker, “Last Supper / Lord’s Supper: More Than a Parable in Action?” Themelios 26:2.).

While I wouldn’t place being blasted by electic fans on the level of Holy Communion, such worship acts certainly share a common thread with Jesus and his OT antecendents. Experiential worship may not be prophetic in the sense of foretelling the future, but they can be extremely prophetic in the more biblical sense of fourth-telling what is going on in the present. In this way, they have more in common with the creative actions and symbols encountered in contemporary political protest than those at a typical church – which seems a darn shame.

A tank has become the victim of guerilla knitters. Can we imagine a worship equivalent?

Symbolic worship can also give powerful voice to what is going on in the heart of the worshipper – often moving participants to tears. These acts gain much of their power by speaking though the silent language of the body, or through other pre-linguistic, intuitive means such as art.

Tomorrow evening we’re exploring Jesus’ teaching in Matthew 11:

Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest… For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.

We’re got paper bags to hold our “burdens” and balloons to float them off to Jesus in “Heaven”. Can’t wait.

The great worship grab

It’s been happening for a while now. Slowly but surely, in churches around Australia and presumably the world. The meaning of “worship” has been changing. From “the stuff you do in church”* to “singing”.

You hear it everywhere:

• “She’s our worship leader” [translation - She leads the singing]
• “We had a great time of worship” [We had lots of singing]
• And one I got walloped with recently: “If you don’t focus on worship, you can’t call it a church service” [Fair enough under the traditional meaning of worship, but not, in my opinion, if worship = singing]

And it’s not just any singing we’re talking about. It means singing the kinds of songs made popular world-wide by Sydney mega-church Hillsong. Many of these song are good – contemporary in style and language, varied in genre (although generally sticking to ballads/pop). They’re also suited to playing by ensembles, giving a larger number of people – especially younger people – opportunities to participate and lead. Although this can be a mixed blessing…

But such songs are notoriously difficult to sing. Many popular contemporary “worship” songs feature changes in key, tempo and time signature. They frequently have long intros and bridges, unexpected pauses, syncopated rhythms and unpredictable structures. Old hymns may err on the side of dull, and use language that makes the King James Version sound modern, but at least they were designed for congregational participation. If you didn’t know it, you could always pick it up by the second verse. New “worship” songs tend to require more numerous (and often more talented) personnel to achieve an acceptable “performance” (if that’s the right word – and I think it is). “Great is your Faithfulness” takes a pianist and piano. “One Way” by Hillsong United involves, well, see for yourself:

(I hope the skateboarding at the beginning is optional. We have a number of over-80s in our church and the collateral damage could be quite nasty.)

So how has such singer-unfriendly music become such a part of worship for so many churchgoers as to become synonymous with worship itself? A few weeks ago, I went undercover to a nearby Hillsong-style church and I made a tremendous discovery. Maybe everyone else has known this for years, but during the worship/singing time in churches of this persuasion – which typically occupies the first 20 minutes or more of the service – you don’t actually sing. Oh, the band and bank of “worship leaders” sing, but you in the congregation don’t. You stand, clap, wave your arms, and sing the occasional chorus line or snatch of lyric, but it’s the kind of “singing along” you get at a rock concert, not in a community choir.

This of course explains why these hard-to-sing songs are so popular: in their native habitat, they’re not sung, they’re performed/listened to. Great if you’re tone deaf, but overall, I would argue, not a good thing for the church. Why? Firstly, it has the effect of disempowering the people in the pews (by minimising their input into the service) and concentrating authority up the front (by turning musicians into pop stars).

Secondly, this style of “worship” also puts your typical small-to-medium and ok-to-struggling church in a no-win situation. If they try to offer something more contemporary in the way of music, emulating the Hillsong style but without the Hillsong resources, they’re doomed to mediocrity. Embarrassed young people (should they have any) will flee to the big church up the road.

Thankfully, there are alternative ways of being bringing “contemporary” music into church without going doing down the arena-pop road. I’d encourage anyone to check out the music of my former fellow TEAR colleague Dave Andrews. Dave’s voice makes Bob Dylan sound like an angel, but the Brisbane-based “ChristiAnarchist” has written several CDs worth of songs best described (by Dave himself) as:

not Hill Songs, but Valley Songs, easy-to-sing songs about the joys and sorrows of ordinary people working quietly for love and for justice ‘in the valley of the shadow of death’… These songs [are] not written for performance, but for participation. These songs are for people to sit with, to walk around with and to sing along with.

Even more radically, you could question the hegemony of the music = worship equation. For example, why concentrate on one form of artistic expression? Why only sing to God, when there’s no reason we couldn’t spice things up a bit by painting, collage, clay sculpture, performance poetry, theatre sports or any other style of art we can think of. (I have deliberately excluded liturgical dance here. If you need to know why, click here.) I worshipped at a church for many years where this model was explored very effectively with people of all ages.

And why not return to the broader perspective that sees all that we do in church as worship ? The origin of the word “wor” is “worth”, so in worship we give God “God’s worth”. Surely we can do this through prayer, silence, discussion, ritual and more – things that don’t involve a cast of dozens or a budget of thousands. Heaven forbid, we could even count as worship the things we do outside church and in our Monday to Saturday lives…

*I’m not saying this meaning is the right one, but it certainly was the received wisdom.

Three simple alt.worship ideas

It used to be called alt.worship. Now it’s called emerging church. Whatever. There are lots of definitions, but basically it means Not Your Grandma’s 10am Sunday Service (Praise the Lord!). It’s about seeking to remove the tired old wrapping from the gift of encountering God in community, and parceling it up in new and invigorating ways.

Some markers of alt.worship:

old worship	alt.worship
One big group	Several small groups
All face the front, listen to preacher	Face each other, talk to and listen to each other
Sing hymns	Respond to God through various art-forms: draw, make a collage, write a poem
Recite set prayers together	Pray by drawing, lighting candles, meditating, planting a seed or other interactive activities
Sunday morning, in church	Any time, in cafe, pub, park, church
Kids packed off to Sunday School	Adults and kids share in activities
Instant coffee and boring bikkies	Real, fair-trade coffee and home-made treats

Here are three alt.worship ideas we’ve tried lately, based on some readings from the Gospels. Try them out, vary them, improve on them, and let me know what happens.

The man born blind (John 9): the blind people and the elephant

Key discussion point: People who think they know most about God and how God works in the world are often blinkered or blinded by their preconceptions and unable to recognise God in new and unexpected ways and places, while those who have no preconceived ideas can often be the most open to discovering God.

Activity: A large toy elephant is placed in the centre of the space. Someone tells the story of the five blind people and the elephant: they could each only feel individual parts of elephant and so couldn’t recognise it for what it was. But if they shared their different perceptions, they would be much more likely to realise together they were enountering. Similarly, God is much too “big” for each of us to know on our own – even though we can see what God is like in Jesus. And our understanding is often skewed by our own prejudices. But if we share what we know of God with each other, toegther we can come to a fuller understanding and correct some of our “blind spots”.

Each person receives some sticky notes and a pen. They all think of one or two things they each “know” about God, write them on the sticky notes and stick them on the elephant. Then, everyone takes a few minutes to read each other’s comments.

Elephant with sticky notes

“Born from above” (John 3:1-21): what’s made us who we are?

Key discussion point: The idea that, to be a real follower of Jesus, “you must be born again/from above” – same word in the original Greek – has been much misused. Some people say they are “born again”, but do Very Bad Things (George W. Bush). Some followers of Jesus can be made to feel fake or inadequate because they can’t tell the story of their big conversion moment. But being “born from above” is just one metaphor for knowing Jesus. The Bible has others. Paul, for example, has an amazing conversion story to tell, but puts more emphasis on whether the Christians he knows are showing evidence in their lives now that they know Jesus, rather than being able to recite what happened to them in the past. (Such evidence includes exhibiting the “fruits of the Spirit” and loving one another.) So instead of thinking of one “Big Moment” in coming to know God, it might be more helpful to picture a bowl full of different ingreadients that contribute to our “mix”.

Activity: It’s likely that lots of  influences that have helped us know Jesus and grow in love and service of God. These could include friends, books, random enounters with strangers, church leaders, travels, etc etc. Try to name as many of these on slips of paper, then place into a bowl in which a tea-light candle is burning. The flames will turn the notes into prayers of thanksgiving.

The tempting of Jesus (Luke 4:1-13): what tempts us?

Key discussion point: The idea of temptation has been trivialised in our world: it’s not just about whether you can resist eating that extra slice of mud cake. The temptations we need to worry about are not those that may make us fat but those that distracts us from being the person God intended us to be and fulfilling our vocation in the world.

Activity: Worshippers are given a sheet of paper with a pair of eyes drawn on it, some colured pencils, scissors, glue, and a pile of assorted magazines and catalogues. They colour-in the eyes to match their own, then look through the magazines and catalogues to find pictures and words that symbolise what tempts them away from following Jesus. They can take home the finished sheet, stick it to the fridge and use it as a prayer reminder during the week.

Lent among the onions

Shrove Tuesday, it’s one of the great missed marketing opportunities of the Church: after all, who could say no to a pancake? But Mardi Gras only gains its full significance when it’s understood as the last day of feasting before Lent – which I doubt would be quite as easy a sell.

Lent – the 40-odd days leading up to Easter – has been marked in various Christian traditions in a number of different ways, but a common thread is that of giving up something (fasting, or going without luxuries such as alcohol or chocolate) while taking up something else (a spiritual discipline, like prayer, or a social justice commitment, like giving to the poor).

My past Lenten attempts have been about as successful as my New Years’ Resolutions – and about as spiritual. But this year, I have a plan, and I think it will work. I’m spending Lent in the vegetable garden.

Veggie Garden of Eden

Gardens are very biblical places – scripture is full of them.The Anglican Church lectionary (list of appointed readings) for one of the first days of Lent pairs Matthew’s story of Jesus’ temptation with the temptation of Adam and Eve. The Genesis story, of course, takes place in a garden, the archetypal earthly paradise, where nature is hospitable, domesticated and willingly shares its bounty with humanity. But Adam and Eve’s disobedience turns that garden into a wilderness, a hostile and recalcitrant place where the living is far from easy. As God narrates:

Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat food from it all the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for you… By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food… (Gen 3:17-19)

And so it has been. But fast forward from ex-Eden to Palestine circa 30 AD. Matthew locates Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness, a place of hunger. Yet as the gospel story plays out to the end, we see that Jesus’ continual obedience to God even through death opens the way for humanity to be reconciled to God, and the hostile wilderness that earth has become to us be once again our hospitable garden home (symbolised by the restored tree of life and the undoing of the edenic curse in Revelation 22).

My garden is neither Eden nor wilderness. It is a small, disused backyard vegetable patch that my dad is helping me rehabilitate.We first weeded the whole bed, then marked off about 1/6 of it to begin work in. The next step, to my surprise, was not to upend a few packets of seeds and give it a once-over with the hose (we have tank water, by the way). Instead, we spent several back-breaking hours digging up the soil to a spade or more’s depth, turning it and carefully ridding it of stones, roots and other rubbish that would get in the way of new growth. Then we added the manure. Then we dug in the manure. Then we watered. And then we planted – carrots and spring onions.

I was hot and very sweaty by the end. My shoes were full of dirt, I had cow manure under my finger nails, and a callous from the spade. But I had learnt a small Lenten lesson: before you put the new stuff in, you have to get the old stuff out. Too often, I’ll embark on some form of spiritual self-improvement, whether motivated by Lent or just a general sense that I need to pull up my holy socks. So I’ll add more Bible reading, or praying, or being nice to my spouse to my life. But of course it never lasts. I now have a suspicion that this failure is because I’ve neglected to prepare my garden properly in the first place – I haven’t dealt with the selfishness or doubt or anger or whatever else is at the root (sorry) of the issue. So just like in the parable of the sower, the seeds of my good intentions are likely to fall on stony ground or be choked by weeds before they have a chance to sprout.

This Lent, then, instead of resolving to be nice to everyone, read swathes of the Bible or give up everything that makes life fun, I’m going to put myself under the discipline of the garden and see what it has to say to me about life, about creation and about God. At the very least, I should end up with a nice bunch of onions.

The end of the world as we know it

Overheard in a Melbourne lift:

Man: Cyclones, floods, earthquakes, bushfires, revolutions… My children asked me last night if it was Armageddon.
Woman: How would they know about Armageddon?
Man: They saw the movie.
Woman: Maybe we need Bruce Willis to save us.

...but I feel fine.

Though it’s become shorthand for “the end of the world”, Armageddon – the biblical “Last Battle” – only gets one mention in Christian scripture, in Revelation chapter 16:

Then they gathered the kings together to the place that in Hebrew is called Armageddon.

That’s all we hear until chapter 19 when the kings, their armies and their demonic allies take on Christ and his heavenly host. No surprises as to who wins. This confrontation comes at the climax of a range of calamitous events signalling the end of rebellious humanity’s reign of terror on earth, and the beginning of God’s just and generous rule. Disease, environmental catastrophe, war, famine, economic chaos and earthquake are just some of the fun we have to look forward to, according to Revelation.

Sounds a lot like today’s paper.

So, is this Armageddon, mummy and daddy? In some ways, it would be nice if it was! As a theologian, one of my particular interests is eschatology – the study of the “Last Things” (both last chronologically, and last as in lasting – we theologians can be subtle when we try). So it would be rather neat to be an eye-witness to these momentous events – and it would save me finishing my thesis.

Eschatology is an even bigger conversation-stopper that theology itself. If anyone knows what you’re talking about, they naturally assume you’re a nut. But eschatology is actually a pretty cool field. Traditionally, the “last things” it studied were death, judgement, heaven and hell – core areas of solid, if rather dry, doctrine. But since the 1960 and 70s, the topic has become a little more exciting – and excitable.

To over-simplify, we can pin the changes on two books. Firstly, The Theology of Hope (1967), by the incomparable Jurgen Moltmann. Prodded by Marx’s vision of an earthly, corporate utopia, and driven by his own experience of WWII to despair of the possibilities of human progress without divine intervention, Moltmann began to restore the centre of eschatology from the individual to the corporate, and from the human to the divine. The question became not – “What will happen when I die?” – but – “What is God’s ultimate, historical purpose for God’s people, God’s creation and Godself? And what is the role of the church in achieving this purpose?” Moltmann stood at the head of a loose school of theologians whose focus was eschatological, but whose concerns were firmly in the here-and-now: justice for the poor, women’s liberation, ecology, church reform and world peace to name a few. (Dare we say, left-wing issues?)

Secondly – from the sublime to the ridiculous – The Late, Great Planet Earth (1970) by American Hal Lindsay. Both literalistic and wildly imaginative, the book became a publishing sensation. Cashing in on the growing interest in spirituality and futurism of the Age of Aquarius, and picking up on America’s angst (prompted by the oil crisis, the Nuclear Age and 70s “moral decline”) that it may no longer be Top Nation, Lindsay blithely interpreted the arcane symbolism of the Bible with the aid of the daily headlines, finding Soviet Russia and the EU in the pages of Revelation like the answers to some cryptic crossword. While Lindsay’s message ultimately boiled down to “get saved now and avoid the last-minute rush”, his legacy lives on: a populist, right-wing, vengeful wish-fulfilment eschatology that owes more to the Republican Party than God.

Ok, so that’s a potted history of recent developments in eschatology. So, is this Armageddon, mummy and daddy?

Lindsay would give a resounding “Yes!” Ever alert to the signs of the (end) times, he’d see the world’s recent spate of natural and political upheavals as proof that the end was very nigh. Things will only get worse and worse, until God steps in to save the Christians, and send everyone else to hell. The only action we can take is spiritual and individual – to repent.

Moltmann would say “Probably not”. The end is coming, but its progress can only be seen from God’s perspective not ours – it will be brought in by God, not called in upon us. Messy situations on earth – even so-called natural disasters – are more to do to with the natural consequences of humans behaving in messed up ways, than a sign of supernatural intervention. More importantly, the end is not about destruction and death, but about recreation and rebirth – no matter how violent the imagery, God’s purpose is to bring to fulfillment God’s plan for the perfection of creation. This includes the earth, humanity and human culture. God, says Moltmann, will incorporate into the “New Creation” human efforts, no matter how feeble and corrupt, to “make the world a better place”. So our scope for action is by no means limited to the individual and spiritual: whether we believe the end is near or far, humanity should work together for the good of all.

Finally, what would Jesus say? Matthew reports him as advising listeners:

You will hear of wars and rumours of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines and earthquakes in various places. All these are the beginning of birth pains. (24:6-8)

Conflict and chaos signal the beginning of the end, but not The End. Instead, Jesus continues:

[T]his gospel of the kingdom will be preached in the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come. (24:14)

The end – or the purpose – of this life on earth is bound up with the spreading of the Good News about God – liberation for the oppressed, wholeness for the afflicted, love for the stranger, care for creation. We don’t need Bruce Willis to save us from the end, we need God’s Spirit to help us fulfil our part in making God’s kingdom a reality.

Theology in a nutshell

If you want a great conversation stopper, tell people you’re a theology student. It works in one of two ways. Many people aren’t sure what theology means, but don’t want to let on because they think they probably should. So they respond with “Oh, right” or similar, and change the subject. Other people know that theology has something to do with religion, and that religious people are determined to convert you, so they respond with “I’m a Catholic” or similar, and change the subject.

But occasionally, you get a response that shuts you up, rather than your interlocutor. This happened recently while chatting to a cycling partner. Having told her “I’m a theology student”, she responded with, “I don’t know much about Christianity: all I know is ‘love thy neighbour’.”

And in a way, that’s all there is to know.

Why I’m not an atheist

It’s ironic (or perhaps it isn’t) that the biggest “story” in Christianity for 2010 was atheism. This year saw the Global Atheist Conference in Melbourne and an atheist bus poster campaign in London. Battle lines were drawn over the proposed introduction of an ethics course in NSW primary schools to provide an option for students who don’t attend religious education classes. The country’s newest political force, the Australian Sex Party, campaigned with the slogan of Keeping Religion out of Politics. And English atheist and writer Christopher Hitchens memorably stuck to his guns, turning down offers of prayer in the wake of his diagnosis with cancer.

But while there are proportionately more atheists around today than in Victorian times, I suspect there are fewer Capital-A-Atheists like my personal favourite, Mr Goe. The story has it that this 19th century English solicitor was such a staunch non-believer that he refused to give his sons “Christian” names. So one was called Field Flowers and the other Garden Flowers! (Sadly for Mr Goe, Field Flowers grew up to be a priest and eventually bishop of Melbourne.)

Field Flowers Goe wasn't an atheist either.

More and more of my friends put “Atheist” as their Facebook religious status. Does this mean that atheism is their religion (which would of course make them people of faith and thus negate their claim)? Do they see atheism as saying “No” to belief, or is it a belief in a fundamental “No”? I must admit I haven’t asked. Perhaps I should make that one of my goals of 2011, but the truth is I’m scared of it turning into a pointless argument for and against the existence of God, on one hand, or the validity of Christianity, on the other.

It’s not that I don’t think that either position is defensible (which is not the same as provable), but that arguing is not the way to do it. Frederick Buchener’s words resonate here:

C. S. Lewis once said something to the effect that no Christian doctrine ever looked so threadbare to him as when he had just finished successfully defending it. The reason is not hard to find. In order to defend the faith successfully… they need to reduce it to a defensible size… They try to make each doctrine as it comes along sound as logical and plausible as they can. The trouble, of course, is that by and large logic and plausibility are not the heart of the matter, and therefore [they] are apt to end up proclaiming a faith that may be quite persuasive on paper but it is difficult to imagine either them or anyone else getting very excited about. (Whistling in the Dark, p 12.)

“Excited” – yes. Perhaps another reason why I shy from arguing with atheists is that, despite years of theological study – which I love – it’s not the stuff of the brain which keeps me going with this Christian thing, but the stuff of the heart.

Once, if you’d asked me why I was a believer, I would have said that it was because Christianity made sense of the world. I still think it does, but it wouldn’t be my answer now. Now I would say that Christianity holds out the hope of the return of splendour to the world. Not just a hope of justice – that wrongs will be righted, or that nature will be healed, or that humans will be freed from their bias to do harm to themselves and others – but of beauty, glory, splendour! The diamond inside everyone and everything will be polished to perfection. And what’s more, there is a role for all in working towards the achievement of this astonishing state.

Would this answer convince Christopher Hitchens – or even your average FB atheist? It doesn’t sound very logical – yet I find it utterly plausibly, and very, very exciting.