On the Authority...

...of the Billboard Book of Number One Hits I can assure you that this song was number one in the USA the week of October 29, 1966.

Defeater Beliefs

If you’ve been reading this blog then you will know that I’ve been recently listening to talks by US Presbyterian pastor Tim Keller. Keller, in talking about how to communicate the Gospel, recognizes the reality of what he calls ‘Defeater Beliefs’. Defeater Beliefs are culturally generated beliefs about reality that will, as long as they remain unquestioned, defeat any presentation of the Gospel.

Keller maintains that you have to show every doubter that their Defeater Beliefs are not simply doubts about Christianity, but actually alternative beliefs, and that these alternative beliefs are culturally conditioned and demographically peculiar.

Keller recently did a survey of a group of under 25’s - ivy-league educated types- in order to understand their main objections Christianity. In order, that is, to understand their Defeater Beliefs. Thi sis what he came up with:

1. There can’t just be one true religion – all religions must be equally true.
2. Evil and Suffering.
3. The sacredness of choice – the idea that each human being must individually decide what is right or wrong.
4. The record of Christian history – injustices and oppression.
5. Anger – not human anger, but the Bible’s teaching regarding God’s wrath and the cross.
6. The Bible itself – not so much historical or scientific objections regarding the Bible – but that the Bible is socially regressive.

In this talk he goes on to give his responses to these Defeater Beliefs. It's the talk 'Preaching to Believers and Unbelievers'. It’s well done and worthy of listen.

A page of Keller's talks for audio download is here.

The Lutheran Study Bible

The 31st of October is the official release date for the new Lutheran Study Bible, published by CPH. I have a particular interest in this project, because I contributed to the comments on 1 Samuel, Deuteronomy, Micha, and Hebrews. I know that Vernon Kleinig was another Australian Lutheran contributor.

There are some reviews starting to appear on the net. I’ll link here to a particularly interesting one that was linked form Pastor Weedon’s blog.

I’m looking forward to holding a copy in my hands!

Evening in the Palace of Reason

Recently a dear friend (Marlene Pietsch) lent me the book Evening in the Palace of Reason: Bach Meets Frederick the Great in the Age of Enlightenment by James Gaines. It’s a very entertaining work of popular history, not only because it’s full of musical and military history, but also because it contrasts post-Reformation and Enlightenment Germany wonderfully well through the lives of these two men.
I got through a good chunk of David Fraser’s biography of Frederick, but it is surprisingly dry. I’ve recently listened to a Great Courses lecture series on Bach and the High Baroque by Robert Greenberg, which is unsurprisingly very interesting. Gaines’ work brought Frederick and Bach, and the eras they represent, together for me in a way that was as readable as it was interesting.

Chaplaincy and Speculative Theology

I’ve been doing chaplaincy at the Bendigo campus of La Trobe University half a day a week for the last couple of years. It’s been a lot of fun.

My custom in chaplaincy has been to turn up at the Student Union in my clerical gear (it pays to advertise) and to see what happens. Needless to say, I have had some interesting conversations.

The most colourful reaction I have got is from the middle aged student who said casually in conversation, ‘I think all priests should be shot’.

Recently I’ve had conversations with a young student who was brought up Wiccan – that was her family religion. It’s been fun talking with her because she is genuinely interested in Christianity, and has no discernable animosity toward the church.

Just yesterday I had a long chat with a psychology student who is an atheist in the Richard Dawkins tradition. He thinks that I’m a shaman selling snake oil (I’m not sure whether shamen do this, but I get his point). I find his conversation engaging, and yesterday, in a discussion about Genesis – and the entry of death into the world through Adam - I got to speculating about death as a particularly human reality.

One of the key passages dealing with the entry of death into human existence is Romans 5. Here it is:

‘Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death came through sin, and so death spread to all because all have sinned— sin was indeed in the world before the law, but sin is not reckoned when there is no law. Yet death exercised dominion from Adam to Moses, even over those whose sins were not like the transgression of Adam, who is a type of the one who was to come.’

It’s a mysterious passage, no?

Now, this young psychology student was asking about how Christians can have this as our teaching, when the evidence is that there was death in the world long before human beings came on the scene.

In reply I went into a speculative mode.

There is something, it seems to me, in the human experience of death that is distinct from plant or animal death. I can anticipate my death, I can converse with a psychology student about that fact that we both will die. And there is a dread in death for human beings that seems to be entirely absent in the rest of creation.

Well that’s all for now. I have to go off to a Bible study.

Tim Keller and Luther on the 1st Commandment

Recently I’ve been listening to talks and sermons given by the US Presbyterian minister Tim Keller (you can find them here). Keller has been working in NYC for the past years, and has developed an engaging way of explaining the gospel to people who are wholly ignorant of Christianity.

One of the things that has impressed me in Keller’s talks is the way that he uses Luther’s explanation of the 1st commandment in the Large Catechism as a way of exposing the human propensity to idolatry.

Luther claims that whatever we put our trust in – whatever we hope for good from, whatever we call on in trouble – is our God. We can hope in all sorts of things – money; pleasure; power; status. The problem with putting our whole trust in anything other than God is that it will always let us down.

Most people – even if they think that ‘God’ is simply a human construct - are willing to acknowledge that nothing in life actually can fill the demand that our souls have for joy. Keller’s gift and skill is that he can get people to think about this reality. And that he can lead people from there to listen to the Gospel.

He’s worth a listen.

Blinded by the Light

OK, until yesterday I had no idea that Bruce Springsteen wrote 'Blinded by the Light'.

It's here. And it's pretty dreadful.

I cheerfully confess I've always had a soft spot for Manfred Mann's Earth Band's version. It's here. And it has a certain 70s charm.

Baptists and the Lord's Supper

This is interesting.

It's Dr Timothy George of Beeson Divinity School's response to the question: “How can Baptists respond to Catholic and Orthodox Christians who challenge our view of the Lord’s Supper as having no deeper historical/Biblical roots than Zwingli?”

Do Dogs and Cats have Consciences?

C.S. Lewis thought so....

In a letter written in 1955

'We were talking about Cats and Dogs the other day and decided that both have consciences but the dog, being an honest, humble person, always has a bad one, but the Cat is a Pharisee and always has a good one. When he sits and stares you out of countenance he is thanking God that he is not as these dogs, or these humans, or even as these other cats.'

A very powerful argument...