We tend to think that if we allow God into our lives, in the way that the Christian message suggests that we should, then that will make less room for ourselves. That is, there is a certain amount of “space” in my life, and the more God enters that “space”, the more I get shoved out. So to become a Christian is to diminish my freedom.

But this isn’t the only way of looking at things. Drawing heavily on the analogy of music, Begbie presents a much more enriching and appealing perspective on how the presence of God in my life affects my own freedom.

Have a listen for yourself…

The only slightly frustrating thing about the talk was that many of the musical extracts were not included in the recording. I’ve tried to find some of them:

Lever du jour from Daphnis et Chloé, Suite No. 2, by Maurice Ravel

South African National Anthem

Spem in Alium by Thomas Tallis

J.S. Bach’s Chaconne in D minor, arranged by Busoni (part 1)

J.S. Bach’s Chaconne in D minor, arranged by Busoni (part 2)

This question (also the title of a recent book by Denis Alexander) is one over which evangelical Christians often sharply disagree. Some (“young-earth creationists”) maintain that the Bible makes it crystal clear that life, the Universe and everything have had their beginning within the past few thousand years. Others (“theistic evolutionists”) are less willing to overthrow the overwhelming scientific consensus, being convinced that the Bible, when interpreted correctly, is perfectly compatible with an evolutionary origin of all that there is, over billions of years.

Sadly, with such widely separated and strongly held convictions, the church often responds with immaturity. Rival factions are formed, each with its own societies, meetings, books and magazines, which exist to strengthen the conviction of their constituents that those on the other side are not only wrong but obviously and dangerously wrong. Encounters are generally heated and unproductive, with one side viewing the other as compromisers on the verge of unbelief and the other reciprocating with embarrassment and frustration at how these simpletons are making the faith look ridiculous. In the midst of this, those of a more conciliatory disposition do their level best to avoid the issue altogether.

It was under this same question that some 60 or 70 people crammed into a small church building in Brighton on Saturday 15 May 2010, to try something more constructive, as Calvary Evangelical Church hosted a debate on the subject of creation and evolution. What took place was a robust yet measured and respectful discussion between two brothers in Christ, with the audience heeding the encouragement of the chair for the evening, Prof. Richard Vincent, to approach this enormous subject with grace and great humility.

First to present his case, after the toss of a coin, was young-earth creationist Dr Steve Lloyd, formerly a researcher in materials science at Cambridge University, and now a pastor at Hope Church in Gravesend and a part-time speaker and writer for Biblical Creation Ministries. Rather than focusing on the “days” of Genesis 1, as might have been expected, the crux of his 20-minute opening presentation was that the biblical narrative and the evolutionary narrative are fundamentally incompatible. The biblical narrative tells the story of a good creation, spoiled by sin and restored by the work of Christ. This can be expressed as a history of physical death: human physical death entered the world as a consequence of sin, and this explains why Jesus, in solving the problem of sin, had to undergo human physical death. In contrast, the evolutionary narrative sees physical death, including human physical death, as part of the original created order, and not as a consequence of sin. Attempts to combine the evolutionary and biblical narratives therefore make it far from obvious how Christ’s physical death has any connection with the problem of sin. Instead, the primary purpose of Christ’s physical death and resurrection seems to be to usher in a new created order of which physical death will not be a part.

Presenting the other side of the argument was theistic evolutionist Dr Ard Louis, a Reader in Theoretical Physics from the University of Oxford who has strong links with organisations such as Christians in Science, The Faraday Institute, The BioLogos Foundation, and The Templeton Foundation. The first part of his presentation was on the issue of biblical interpretation. We must be very careful to distinguish what the Bible actually teaches from what we read into the Bible because of our cultural assumptions. Science, though not dictating how we should interpret the Bible, can help us to recognize when we have misunderstood Scripture. For example, many used to be convinced that the Bible taught geocentrism. Then, when science showed us that the Earth is not the centre of the Solar System, these people looked more carefully at the biblical text and concluded that those passages should have been interpreted differently. This process can be applied to the creation accounts in Genesis. There are various clues in the passages that they are not supposed to be interpreted journalistically (as books such as Luke’s Gospel should be). For example, the sun and moon are created on Day 4, after the creation of light on Day 1, and Genesis 1 displays a careful literary structure. The second part of the presentation was about science. There are many Christians involved in science who see no conflict between their Christian faith and their beliefs in the great antiquity of the earth. Moreover, there is strong evidence for this antiquity, such as that derived from ice cores. And we should not be afraid of ideas of deep space and time, which can be welcomed as displaying the grandeur of the glory of God.

Following these opening statements, the speakers each had ten minutes to respond, after which audience members were invited to place written questions in a box, which formed the basis for around 30 minutes of discussion, led by the chair. Various matters were covered, such as biblical interpretation, the “days” of Genesis, evidence for pre-historic man and genomics. Two further issues deserve some reflection.

The first is the importance of the question itself. Louis made the point that from his perspective the “how” of creation is of secondary importance: the main teaching of Genesis is clear and doesn’t depend on how God created. Having said that, the debate does have some importance, because many Christian students struggle with reconciling their faith with their beliefs about science. In contrast, for Lloyd the “how” of creation is itself of great importance, being, as he sees it, very closely connected with the core elements of the gospel message. This makes the debate difficult, as one side sees the issue as important for understanding the gospel while the other side sees it as relatively unimportant.

The second issue is the way “ordinary” Christians respond to hearing experts disagree about the Bible. How are they supposed to have confidence in the Bible if those who study it seriously can reach such different conclusions? This is not easy to deal with. But it is important for “ordinary” Christians to be equipped to interpret the Bible for themselves, so they can have confidence in what they believe and why they believe it, instead of relying on “experts” to interpret the Bible on their behalf.

My own reflections on the two positions are that Lloyd presented some strong arguments on how we understand the cross of Jesus that were not adequately addressed, while Louis clearly had the upper hand scientifically, in that creationist models of earth history are very under-developed and go against the overwhelming consensus of Christians (and others) with expertise in these areas. But, in summary, the debate for me exemplified the kind of serious but respectful dialogue that is utterly vital if the church at large is to make progress towards unity and maturity in this area.

(A recording of the debate is available from the website of Calvary Evangelical Church, Brighton, www.calvary-brighton.org.uk.)

Contrasting his model with the standard approach to science he writes:

This model begins with the assumption that science is an open-ended search for truth, and is not willing to accept any rules that will restrict the search. Science as a game, following an arbitrary set of rules, does not interest me. One such arbitrary rule, the philosophy of naturalism rejects any hypotheses that imply supernatural intervention in the universe at any time, past or present. But the absence of unique events (supernatural or otherwise) should not be assumed, but should be a hypothesis to be tested. If we wish to consider whether there were such interventions, and to examine evidence relevant to that question, naturalism must be set aside so that the search can proceed unhindered (p. 30, see also p. 14f.).

Many Christians adopt methodological naturalism, seeing science and theology as “parallel but separate” ways of seeking knowledge. How does this work out in practice?

For them, science must generally proceed without interference, and religion seeks answers only to questions that science cannot address. Religion and science are kept separate, but actually they are only partially separated by a one-way door. In their system religion can learn from science, but science does not learn from religion, and religion does not “correct” science (p. 17).

As an alternative, Brand advocates a real two-way dialogue between science and religion:

This model encourages active interaction between science and religion in topics where they make overlapping claims, because both are accepted as sources of cognitive knowledge about the universe. Allow feedback between them, to encourage deeper thinking in both areas and provide an antidote to carelessness on both sides. Both religion and science can make factual suggestions to the other, which can be the basis for careful thought and hypothesis testing. This model respects the scientific process, but also recognizes truth in Scripture (p. 13).

The approach developed in more detail in the article, but this diagram captures the essence (p. 33):

Working this out in practice will be far from trivial, but I’m convinced this is the kind of approach Christians should be taking as scientists.

Well, yes, but that’s not the main purpose.

I’ve been listening to a talk on expository preaching by John Hosier, in which he quotes Martyn Lloyd-Jones as quoting Jonathan Edwards as follows (so you are now reading Anthony Smith on John Hosier on Martyn Lloyd-Jones on Jonathan Edwards on preaching):

The main benefit obtained by preaching is by impression made upon the mind at the time, and not by an effect that arises afterwards by a remembrance of what was delivered. And though an after-remembrance of what was heard in a sermon is oftentimes very profitable; yet, for the most part, that remembrance is from an impression the words made on the heart at the time; and the memory profits, as it renews and increases that impression.

Martyn Lloyd-Jones comments:

The first and primary object of preaching is not only to give information. It is, as Edwards says, to produce an impression. It is the impression at the time that matters, even more than what you can remember subsequently.

Preachers: don’t give a lecture! Listeners: let the words sink into your mind—and through your mind to your heart—now; don’t just scribble them down to think about later!

In a letter to Michael Farthing, one member of university staff wrote: “I feel that many people amongst the predominantly left-wing community at this university will be offended at the shutting down of a thriving independent café, to create a forced monopoly of institutional food with negative impacts on many people’s lives.”

What does “left-wing” mean in this context? Surely any true left-wingers should be entirely in favour of enforced state ownership and equality (of outcome) and opponents of an open competitive market? Or does “left-wing” mean “right-wing” now? (Tom, what do you think? Not sure anyone else will read this far!)

1. Of course, Adam and Eve were specially created by God, and were the biological progenitors of the entire human race.
2. Hold on, that doesn’t seem to fit with the scientific evidence. But anyway, aren’t we being a bit too literalistic with Genesis? Maybe they weren’t historical individuals, but rather a metaphor for the entire human race, for example?
3. I’m not sure about that—if they weren’t historical individuals, then does the Christian doctrine of the Fall really make sense? (E.g., Henri Blocher)
4. Fair point, so it seems they were historical individuals. But perhaps they were not actually the biological progenitors of the entire human race? Could they not have been just two members of a long-established population of human beings, but those to whom God chose to reveal himself in a special way? (E.g., Denis Alexander)
5. But how then are we to understand the nature of the connection between Adam and the rest of humanity? And what does this do to the traditional Christian understanding of sin and death? Does Jesus death on the cross still make sense? (E.g., Stephen Lloyd, Michael Reeves)
6. To be continued…

What prompted me to write this was reading the chapter by Michael Reeves, which has been recently been published online at Reformation21. He raises some issues that I hope will be addressed before long (if they haven’t already been addressed elsewhere). Also, Stephen Lloyd presented some of his arguments at a debate held at my church on Saturday (MP3 available)—watch this space for a report…

But in the meantime, over to you…

Those two simple letters encapsulate an argument that goes something like this. (1) The electorate would always prefer a single-party majority government to a minority or coalition government. (2) First-past-the-post (FPTP), our current electoral system, is more likely to produce a single-party majority government, and is therefore better at reflecting the will of the electorate.

In response to (1), is it really the case that the majority of voters in the last election would have preferred a majority Conservative government to what we currently have? That is the implication. Let’s test it out. Let’s ask a typical Lib Dem voter: “Given the choice between two alternatives, and only two alternatives, would you prefer a majority Conservative government or a Conservative-Lib Dem coalition?” The answer: “Coalition.” Now here’s a typical Labour voter: “Coalition.” QED. The electorate would not always prefer a single-party majority government to a minority or coalition government.

In response to (2), if the chief advantage of FPTP is that it distorts the wishes of the electorate so as to produce a single-party government with an overall majority, then are proponents of FPTP open to considering alternative voting systems that similarly distort the wishes of the electorate? Why not have an STV election, with all of its advantages, and then selectively replace successful Liberal Democrat candidates with unsuccessful Conservative and/or Labour candidates? That would produce the same desired effect (a single-party majority government), and could be done in such a way as to overcome some of the undesirable outcomes of the last election, such as the following, from Ken Richie’s piece:

On May 6 the Conservatives won only one of Scotland’s 59 seats. In the eastern region, Labour won only two of the 58 seats. Yet one in five Scots backed the Conservatives, and the same proportion of voters wanted Labour in the East of England. That’s what representative democracy means under the first-past-the-post (FPTP) system.

I think it’s time for a change.

Meanwhile, we’ve been busy putting together the first results from HerMES, a major project on Herschel looking at star formation in hundreds of thousands of very distant galaxies. These were among the many results announced last week at an ESA conference in The Netherlands (which included a media event), and now the HerMES scientific papers are being made available to anyone who enjoys reading that kind of thing, and, indeed to anyone who doesn’t. For mere mortals, though, the pretty pictures are on OSHI, the Online Showcase of Herschel Images and on the Herschel blog.

That’s not an easy question to answer. Politics is messy, government is messy, politicians and political parties are messy. Many issues are involved, and it can be daunting to wade through them all, weighing one cause against another, and deciding which option (if any) is most worthy of one’s support.

That is where Christian organisations can be a great help. One such organisation is The Christian Institute, which (in my opinion) does a fantastic job at highlighting and campaigning on certain moral issues that affect the UK political and legal scene today.

Within the last couple of weeks The Christian Institute has launched their Election Briefing for 2010, with the laudable intention of helping Christian “voters reach an informed decision on how to cast their vote” on 6 May.

Here’s my summary of the document

• Christians should decide how to vote in the 2010 General Election on the basis of “three touchstone issues”: “religious liberty, the sanctity of marriage and the sanctity of human life” (p. 5, 7). Other issues exist, but are much less important.
• The parties’ track records and manifesto pledges should be examined on these issues.
• However, Christians should find out what their own local candidates think about these issues, rather than just looking at the parties, as some candidates do not toe the “party line”.

There follows an evaluation of the major parties, and their policies on these issues. In short, this is how the parties perform (let the reader decide which he/she thinks is the “least worst option” [sic.—twice!—p.3, 8]):

• Labour: mostly abysmal
• Conservative: mostly good (though bad in some areas and allowing a free vote in many others)
• Liberal Democrat: largely dreadful
• SNP: mixed but often good
• Plaid Cymru: mixed

Brief descriptions are given for:

• UKIP: fairly good
• Green: pretty awful
• The Christian Party: very good
• Christian Peoples Alliance: very good

What are we to make of all this? Some comments:

• The narrow focus of the Election Briefing is nothing short of shocking. What about the economy, criminal justice, healthcare, education, the environment, international order, race relations, tax and benefits, employment and housing, to pick a few examples? Is God even remotely interested in any of these? Reading the Election Briefing, one could be forgiven for thinking that these issues are completely irrelevant and should have no bearing on where we put the cross on the ballot paper. Why is that? “When it comes to the economy, Christians can legitimately disagree about the best way to tackle the UK’s deficit” (p. 5). But “The issues we have highlighted are those where we believe the Bible is clear” (p. 4). So Christians should leave complex issues to one side—however important these issues are, however close they are to the heart of God—and instead should focus on a few clear, black-and-white moral issues. Admittedly, there is a thin veneer in the Briefing acknowledging the existence of these weightier matters, but where can I go to find more? Which Christian organisations have produced material to help me understand these? Where is the “Further Reading” section? Where are the tools to enable me to evaluate policies on these issues?
• In some cases, the approach to the narrow range of issues is itself questionable. For example, “Easy divorce laws have led to a lax attitude to marriage” (p.6). Or has a lax attitude to marriage led to easy divorce laws? If it is primarily the latter (and I suspect it is), then I see no reason to believe that good divorce laws will lead to a better attitude to marriage. Good laws are to be preferred to bad laws, of course, and Christians should be campaigning and voting for good laws to be made, but we are fighting a losing battle if we think that the statute book is an effective means to shape the attitudes of society. Maybe there are bigger fish to fry in this election?

How will you decide on how to vote?

and then of Charles Kennedy himself (sorry, picked a bad moment – holding the camera steady was enough of a challenge!)

Right?

Not at all, says James Hannam in his recent and highly accessible book (with a wealth of highly inaccessible contemporary scholarship to back him up). God’s Philosophers: How the Medieval World Laid the Foundations of Modern Science (Icon Books, 2009) seeks to do away with the simplistic and inaccurate view the most people (myself included) have tended to have concerning intellectual achievements of the Middle Ages.

But how could such a misrepresentation arise? Quite easily, in fact. History can easily been rewritten, or re-spun, to give the impression that all that went before was insignificant (“Middle Ages”) and repressive (“Dark Ages”), but that now we have life (“Renaissance”), light (“Enlightenment”), progress (“Modern”) and real transformation (“Reformation” and “revolution”, even “scientific revolution”). Anyone with an axe to grind against their predecessors will soon pile in to reinforce the stereotypes.

So what did these “Middle Ages” do for modern science? The rest of the book takes us on a remarkably enjoyable whistle-stop tour of the period to find out, as we meet one “giant” after another. There’s Boethius (480–525) who, in his hugely influential The Consolation of Philosophy, provided the Latin-speaking world with continued access to Greek scholarship, even after the language faded from use. Then there’s Gerbert of Aurillac (c.940–1003), “the most learned man in Europe”, who introduced some of the riches of Muslim scholarship to a Christian audience before becoming Pope Sylvester II,  the “Mathematical Pope”. And so it continues, as discussions about mathematics and science, the nature of physical reality, the use of dissection and great technological advances are mingled with the colourful life stories of many remarkable individuals. Amongst them are Anselm (1033–1109), Peter Abelard (1079–1142), Thomas Aquinas (1225–74), Roger Bacon (1214–92), Richard of Wallingford (1292–1336), William of Ockham (c.1287–1347), the 14th-century Merton Calculators, John Buridan (c.1300–c.1361), and Nicole Oresme (c.1325–82), who gave arguments to show that the earth was rotating (everyone knew it was round, of course). (The book’s List of Key Characters came in handy for writing that bit!)

Particularly interesting to me, as someone largely ignorant of the subject, were the five chapters on the origins of modern astronomy, with Nicolaus Copernicus (1472–1543), Johann Kepler (1571–1630), Galileo Galilei (1564–1642) and their buddies.

Right, I’m going to do something very countercultural, so hold tight. No, don’t worry, I’m not going to leave Facebook or switch my mobile phone off. More radical than that: I’m going to tell you how I’m planning to vote in the next election.

Brighton Pavilion constituency, in which I live, is a three-way marginal between the Labour, Conservative and Green parties. I’m backing the Green Party candidate. Here’s why.

• Like many, I find myself disillusioned with Labour and the Conservatives. Nothing excites me less than another parliamentary term under one or the other. I want to see real change, and for me that means a hung parliament after the next election, with greater representation for the smaller parties, and a gradual shift of power away from the Lab-Con establishment (or, more likely, a serious reform of one or both of those parties).
• The Green Party is a significant force in British politics, with numerous Green councillors and two Green MEPs. However, of the 646 seats in the Commons, not one is occupied by a Green Party representative. This is a consequence of our silly “first-past-the-post” voting system. Now, even though I don’t agree with all of their policies, I’m not a Green Party member, and I don’t think I’d want a Green Government, I do want there to be a Green voice in the Commons. That can happen only if they get a majority of the votes in at least one constituency. Brighton Pavilion is their best chance yet, and a very realistic chance at that.
• There are many things I like about the Green Party. I’ve been very impressed with the local party, its members and councillors, and think they are doing a great job at making Brighton a better place. There’s a certain freshness, authenticity and transparency to the way the party functions. Their policies are much wider than environmental issues and I like the sound of a lot of them (for example, they don’t idolize the free market economy).
• Caroline Lucas MEP, the party leader and their candidate for Brighton Pavilion, has been on the BBC twice this week, and has confirmed what I thought already, that she is an able, intelligent and articulate politician with great integrity. But you can judge for yourself: Question Time (available for ages), and Straight Talk (available for the next few days).

Anyway, enough of this crazy political stuff…

Certainly, master!

Right, how am I going to turn these quirky little stories into a feature-length film? That could be a challenge…  Films usually have a plot…  Hmm…

Hold on, what have we here?  “Instant Film!  Simply add characters and special effects!”  Ah, this could do the trick!  Which flavour shall I use?  How about this one: “Vanilla Epic Flavour. Evil ruler in control, good ruler in hiding, only a champion fighting an evil monster to the death can release the people from their suffering, enter champion, told of destiny, unsure of identity at first, recover magic weapon, go to battle, fight, win, people free, all live happily ever after.”

Sounds promising, but I’m not sure – an epic battle between the forces of good and evil doesn’t sound even remotely like Alice in Wonderland!  No, I’m really going to have to think about this a bit harder… Hold on – what’s this on the packaging?  “Fed up of making new plots with every film?  That’s a thing of the past with Instant Film!  All you have to do is add the other ingredients and then a blockbuster is guaranteed!”

Right, that’s settled. I’ll just chop up these old Lewis Carroll books, and stir them into the “Vanilla Epic Flavour Instant Film”, and see what happens.  Okay, let’s get started. I suppose Alice will be the champion. The evil ruler? Queen of Hearts. What about the evil monster? Let’s see … Mr Jabberwocky, can you do that?  Thank you. Who’s next in line? Ah, the Cheshire Cat …

L’Abri ideas library

And here’s a picture of the English L’Abri, in Hampshire.

I had almost got used to this – part of the initiation rite as a Mac devotee – but now I have two machines on my desk at work, with different keyboard layouts, so it’s driving me pretty crazy. Enough is enough. Real Mac UK Keyboard Layout (hat tip: Greg Knapp).

A bigger venue now, for the first scientific results from the Herschel Space Observatory. Not sure how much I can reveal right now (the presentations will be uploaded after the conference, and I think they might be embargoed until then) but the photo above gives you the general idea. In the corner you can just about see the figure of Göran Pilbratt, the Herschel Project Scientist (who refused to stand still for the 8-second exposure), and on the screen he is dazzling us with an overview of the mission.

However, some results were revealed yesterday at a press briefing, and here they are…

• OSHI – Online Showcase of Herschel Images
• Inside the dark heart of the Eagle
• Reported on the BBC News website