A New Economic Paradigm
Concerned Malaysians need to take cognisance of the following facts:
• The global capitalist economy is ailing. The drive for profits by cutting production costs has reduced wages all over the world. As a result there is insufficient demand to fuel an economy predicated on the profit motive. The world economy is in for a long period of stagnation.
• We are reaching the limits of our environment. Oil is going to run out in the next 30 years. There is a high possibility that global warming is going to lead to ecological disaster and disruption of human society on a scale never seen before. We need to reduce our carbon footprint, and urgently. Wasteful consumption has to stop — but such consumption is profitable to the businesses!
• Modern, industrialised economies can be built without entrepreneurs. The USSR is an example of that. Yes, it was a dictatorship with a terrible human rights record. But the fact remains that a backward European country could develop into the second super-power within a span of 40 years without the help of capitalists i.e. capitalists are not essential for the development of an advanced industrial economy.
The question we need to ask ourselves is — can we devise a truly democratic political system to administer an economy where production is not for profits but is centred on human need
Towards a NEW paradigm
We need to explore these alternatives. All the great religious leaders could not have got it wrong when they advocated a more humane and caring society. We need to think out of the box. We need to look at the experiments taking place in Latin America where democratically-elected governments in Venezuela and Bolivia, which keep touching base with the voters through referendums periodically, are trying to re-distribute the wealth of the country. In the process they have unlocked the power of poor communities to help themselves and build a better, more caring society.
We need to work towards an alternative world order, starting with a community of nations that believes that:
• people come before profits;
• trade should be for the mutual benefit of the peoples of both nations and not to maximise the profits of the largest corporations;
• knowledge is the collective property of all mankind and should not be hoarded by corporations and used to generate profits.
We can’t leave the planning for the future to the prime minister and to the NEAC. They are clearly still stuck inside the old and tired neo-liberal box. Ordinary Malaysian need to start engaging in determining the future of our society. It is too important an issue to leave to politicians. The PM has said that the government will get feedback from society. Perhaps that is a good forum to start the process of dialogue about what sort of society we wish to build for future generations. — aliran.com
* Dr Jeyakumar Devaraj is an Aliran member and Sungai Siput MP.
Saturday, May 29, 2010
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
From The Center for Progressive Christianity
Open Path
We promote an understanding of Christian practice and teaching that leads to a greater concern for the way people treat each other than for the way people express their beliefs, the acceptance of all people, and a respect for other religious traditions. We affirm the variety and depth of human experience and the richness of each person's search for meaning, and we encourage the use of sound scholarship, critical inquiry, and all intellectual powers to understand the experience and presence of God in human life. We are opposed to any exclusive dogma that limits the search for truth and free inquiry, and we encourage work that eases the pain, suffering and degradation inherent in many of the structures of society, as well as work that keeps central to the Christian life fair, open, peaceful, and loving treatment of all human beings.
The Open Sea
Ship at sea
By: Sara
Do you remember the first time you were ever exposed to progressive Christianity? Were you SO excited? Did you find yourself, like me, flooded with relief to discover that there really was a way to reconcile your experiences and knowledge with your spirituality and your faith? I am new to progressive Christianity, although as I look back I see that I have always been on this path. My journey has lead me through quite a few years of knowing what I rejected – legalism, hypocrisy, intolerance, dogmatism, … but it wasn’t until finding TCPC that I could in any fashion, articulate what it was that I affirmed. So, it is here where some of my struggles end,
First, let me lay out some context: My life before consisted of rules, which, if followed, were supposed to make me “right with God”. My life before consisted of having neat little categories for everything – my systematic theology was clearly defined and I had all the answers. But I was that clanging gong – I had no love. I said I followed Jesus, but I had become a lover of my own belief system, rather than a true lover of my neighbor. But then life came in and shook me around like a squeaky dog toy and my “rules” began to seem inconsistent with living a life of joy, of compassion, of love. My neat little boxes had become stifling. My life had become about what you Knew, rather than about how you Lived. So that was what I had to walk away from.
It was at this point that TCPC came into my life and some wonderful caring, individuals who assured me I was growing, despite my inability to coherently converse about what was happening. So I grew. But just the other day I found myself looking back at the “old me” with a kind of sentimentality and I wondered why. Here is this momentous change occurring in my mind and heart but I found myself foolishly yearning for that which I no longer have – absolutes. Now I know this sounds absurd, so let me explain.
John A. Shedd once wrote “A ship in the harbor is safe, but that is not what ships were built for.” I have left my old spiritual harbor, and I KNOW this is the right path for me. Of that I have no question. My ship feels sturdy and the wind is at my back. But, back there in the harbor, I felt safe -- even though I fully acknowledge that the safety I felt then came more from ignorance and legalism. What a basic, powerful human need it is to feel safe! To know. To have an answer. I think I’m still wrapping my head around finding security and peace in this mysterious process of growing in love, rather than pursuing the “right” answers. But it’s hard -- All I have ever known up until now have been absolutes, and even knowing now that the absolutes were incorrect for me, I still miss them. Silly, isn’t it!
So, today I stand on the deck of my ship. I have left the harbor behind and I think I will stop looking back. What mystery, or adventure, heartache or revelation might await me on the open sea? I know not. Only that I was made to find out.
Open Path
We promote an understanding of Christian practice and teaching that leads to a greater concern for the way people treat each other than for the way people express their beliefs, the acceptance of all people, and a respect for other religious traditions. We affirm the variety and depth of human experience and the richness of each person's search for meaning, and we encourage the use of sound scholarship, critical inquiry, and all intellectual powers to understand the experience and presence of God in human life. We are opposed to any exclusive dogma that limits the search for truth and free inquiry, and we encourage work that eases the pain, suffering and degradation inherent in many of the structures of society, as well as work that keeps central to the Christian life fair, open, peaceful, and loving treatment of all human beings.
The Open Sea
Ship at sea
By: Sara
Do you remember the first time you were ever exposed to progressive Christianity? Were you SO excited? Did you find yourself, like me, flooded with relief to discover that there really was a way to reconcile your experiences and knowledge with your spirituality and your faith? I am new to progressive Christianity, although as I look back I see that I have always been on this path. My journey has lead me through quite a few years of knowing what I rejected – legalism, hypocrisy, intolerance, dogmatism, … but it wasn’t until finding TCPC that I could in any fashion, articulate what it was that I affirmed. So, it is here where some of my struggles end,
First, let me lay out some context: My life before consisted of rules, which, if followed, were supposed to make me “right with God”. My life before consisted of having neat little categories for everything – my systematic theology was clearly defined and I had all the answers. But I was that clanging gong – I had no love. I said I followed Jesus, but I had become a lover of my own belief system, rather than a true lover of my neighbor. But then life came in and shook me around like a squeaky dog toy and my “rules” began to seem inconsistent with living a life of joy, of compassion, of love. My neat little boxes had become stifling. My life had become about what you Knew, rather than about how you Lived. So that was what I had to walk away from.
It was at this point that TCPC came into my life and some wonderful caring, individuals who assured me I was growing, despite my inability to coherently converse about what was happening. So I grew. But just the other day I found myself looking back at the “old me” with a kind of sentimentality and I wondered why. Here is this momentous change occurring in my mind and heart but I found myself foolishly yearning for that which I no longer have – absolutes. Now I know this sounds absurd, so let me explain.
John A. Shedd once wrote “A ship in the harbor is safe, but that is not what ships were built for.” I have left my old spiritual harbor, and I KNOW this is the right path for me. Of that I have no question. My ship feels sturdy and the wind is at my back. But, back there in the harbor, I felt safe -- even though I fully acknowledge that the safety I felt then came more from ignorance and legalism. What a basic, powerful human need it is to feel safe! To know. To have an answer. I think I’m still wrapping my head around finding security and peace in this mysterious process of growing in love, rather than pursuing the “right” answers. But it’s hard -- All I have ever known up until now have been absolutes, and even knowing now that the absolutes were incorrect for me, I still miss them. Silly, isn’t it!
So, today I stand on the deck of my ship. I have left the harbor behind and I think I will stop looking back. What mystery, or adventure, heartache or revelation might await me on the open sea? I know not. Only that I was made to find out.
Monday, May 17, 2010
From
The Center for Progressive Christianity provides guiding ideas, networking opportunities, and resources for progressive churches, organizations, individuals and others with connections to Christianity.
We promote an understanding of Christian practice and teaching that leads to a greater concern for the way people treat each other than for the way people express their beliefs, the acceptance of all people, and a respect for other religious traditions.
God in a Bottle
“When a scientist brings a bottle of sea water back to his laboratory, it is still essentially sea.” This analogy is sometimes used to explain how Jesus in human form was still actually God himself. Yet, it also illustrates how we can sometimes have too limited a view of God.
Suppose an exchange teacher took a bottle of seawater with him to a landlocked country, showed it to a class of children and told them that they had now seen the sea. Would this really give them a full appreciation of the nature of the sea?
Even those who have dived into the depths or sailed single-handed around Cape Horn only have a partial knowledge of the oceans. South Sea islanders may spend most of their lives by, in or on the sea but they have no appreciation of what the sea can be like for the crew on an Icelandic trawler in a winter storm. Even oceanographers would not claim to know everything that goes on in the great deeps. On Boxing Day 2004 the world was shocked at the power contained within one wave.
How much more beyond our understanding then is the creative force that produced the oceans on this minor planet which orbits one of trillions of stars? Yet we too often think that we can encapsulate God in definitions and doctrines. Some even have the effrontery to claim that they have the only truth about God and all other experiences of God are invalid. It is like telling people that unless they have ridden the waves on a surfboard, they have no real experience of the sea. No such attempt to present the “the simple truth” about God as a neat package of ideas is going to come even close to doing him justice. He is far more wonderful and multi-dimensional than we can ever imagine. When we insist that people see God as we do, we attempt to contain God within our own faith-shaped bottle.
Too often we project onto God our own understandings of unlimited power and complete knowledge. This is why God is so often depicted very much like a benevolent medieval king on his throne - who listens to the petitions of his subjects, is munificent to those who submit to him but executes terrible justice on those who disobey him. Just what we would do, in fact, if we were in his place. Some even claim to know how God thinks and attribute to God motives from their own speculation, such as “God must always act against sin” or “God can only forgive people if they believe the church’s teaching.” This measures their own level of compassion rather than the depth of God’s love and mercy. This kind of thinking puts God in a bottle shaped in our own image.
Some believe that God is perfectly revealed in scripture. They forget that God cannot be contained in words, particularly in the pre-scientific and often poetic descriptions of people’s experiences of God contained in most sacred books. That is why we find such different pictures in the bible as a God who orders genocide and joins in battles by hurling great hailstones and one who is the good shepherd going to great lengths to find the one lost sheep. Also, whenever we read or discuss scripture, we apply our personal interpretations to the words. Unfortunately, we too often use scripture more to condemn others’ lifestyles and to exclude their beliefs rather than to challenge ourselves. These books can inspire but they only become the word of God when they are lived out and so change people’s lives. God does not fit into a book-shaped bottle.
We can also oversimplify perceptions of God, if we make unqualified statements such as “Jesus is God”, and sing hymns like “Jesus, you are the only one”, or “Jesus is my God.” This can lead people to think that we share the Oneness Pentecostalists’ belief that our God = Jesus. If we lose sight of the manifold ways we can experience God, symbolised in the Trinity, and of Jesus’ humanity, our perception of God can then resemble the figure of Christ on Mormon temples. Of course, it is easier for most people to relate to the human figure of Jesus than to a vast, intangible God. That is why some popular televangelists, with millions of viewers, talk about the Father and the Son in human terms, almost as if Jesus were a kind of superhero. However, this is God in a human-shaped bottle.
Faith is about relationships, love and commitment. Therefore we should encourage people to develop their own personal growing faith through their individual experience of God rather than try to impose our own faith upon them by telling them what they must believe. How many people have we lost because we insisted that their faith must be a particular shape and their experience of God did not fit into that bottle? Jesus compared the attempt to contain the power and vibrancy of a living and dynamic faith within inflexible religious traditions with the folly of putting new wine into old bottles. Indeed, attempts by church leaders to constrain new experiences of God and new Christian movements within the bottle of orthodoxy have led to many denominational splits in the past and to young people leaking out of the church in huge numbers in recent decades.
Albert Schweitzer only fulfilled his potential in God’s service when he stopped trying to shape and contain God with definitions and dogma and allowed God to shape him. His doubts over orthodox doctrine about Jesus caused him to give up preaching and to respond to the call to live out his faith in Jesus by setting up a hospital and leper colony in Africa. He concluded The Quest of the Historical Jesus: with these words:
“He comes to us as One unknown without a name, as of old by the lake-side He came to those men who knew Him not. He speaks to us the same word: 'Follow thou me!' and sets us to the tasks which He has to fulfil for our time. He commands. And to those who obey Him, whether they be wise or simple, He will reveal Himself in the toils, the conflicts, the sufferings which they shall pass through in His fellowship, and, as an ineffable mystery, they shall learn in their own experience Who He Is.”
Philip Sudworth
The Center for Progressive Christianity provides guiding ideas, networking opportunities, and resources for progressive churches, organizations, individuals and others with connections to Christianity.
We promote an understanding of Christian practice and teaching that leads to a greater concern for the way people treat each other than for the way people express their beliefs, the acceptance of all people, and a respect for other religious traditions.
God in a Bottle
“When a scientist brings a bottle of sea water back to his laboratory, it is still essentially sea.” This analogy is sometimes used to explain how Jesus in human form was still actually God himself. Yet, it also illustrates how we can sometimes have too limited a view of God.
Suppose an exchange teacher took a bottle of seawater with him to a landlocked country, showed it to a class of children and told them that they had now seen the sea. Would this really give them a full appreciation of the nature of the sea?
Even those who have dived into the depths or sailed single-handed around Cape Horn only have a partial knowledge of the oceans. South Sea islanders may spend most of their lives by, in or on the sea but they have no appreciation of what the sea can be like for the crew on an Icelandic trawler in a winter storm. Even oceanographers would not claim to know everything that goes on in the great deeps. On Boxing Day 2004 the world was shocked at the power contained within one wave.
How much more beyond our understanding then is the creative force that produced the oceans on this minor planet which orbits one of trillions of stars? Yet we too often think that we can encapsulate God in definitions and doctrines. Some even have the effrontery to claim that they have the only truth about God and all other experiences of God are invalid. It is like telling people that unless they have ridden the waves on a surfboard, they have no real experience of the sea. No such attempt to present the “the simple truth” about God as a neat package of ideas is going to come even close to doing him justice. He is far more wonderful and multi-dimensional than we can ever imagine. When we insist that people see God as we do, we attempt to contain God within our own faith-shaped bottle.
Too often we project onto God our own understandings of unlimited power and complete knowledge. This is why God is so often depicted very much like a benevolent medieval king on his throne - who listens to the petitions of his subjects, is munificent to those who submit to him but executes terrible justice on those who disobey him. Just what we would do, in fact, if we were in his place. Some even claim to know how God thinks and attribute to God motives from their own speculation, such as “God must always act against sin” or “God can only forgive people if they believe the church’s teaching.” This measures their own level of compassion rather than the depth of God’s love and mercy. This kind of thinking puts God in a bottle shaped in our own image.
Some believe that God is perfectly revealed in scripture. They forget that God cannot be contained in words, particularly in the pre-scientific and often poetic descriptions of people’s experiences of God contained in most sacred books. That is why we find such different pictures in the bible as a God who orders genocide and joins in battles by hurling great hailstones and one who is the good shepherd going to great lengths to find the one lost sheep. Also, whenever we read or discuss scripture, we apply our personal interpretations to the words. Unfortunately, we too often use scripture more to condemn others’ lifestyles and to exclude their beliefs rather than to challenge ourselves. These books can inspire but they only become the word of God when they are lived out and so change people’s lives. God does not fit into a book-shaped bottle.
We can also oversimplify perceptions of God, if we make unqualified statements such as “Jesus is God”, and sing hymns like “Jesus, you are the only one”, or “Jesus is my God.” This can lead people to think that we share the Oneness Pentecostalists’ belief that our God = Jesus. If we lose sight of the manifold ways we can experience God, symbolised in the Trinity, and of Jesus’ humanity, our perception of God can then resemble the figure of Christ on Mormon temples. Of course, it is easier for most people to relate to the human figure of Jesus than to a vast, intangible God. That is why some popular televangelists, with millions of viewers, talk about the Father and the Son in human terms, almost as if Jesus were a kind of superhero. However, this is God in a human-shaped bottle.
Faith is about relationships, love and commitment. Therefore we should encourage people to develop their own personal growing faith through their individual experience of God rather than try to impose our own faith upon them by telling them what they must believe. How many people have we lost because we insisted that their faith must be a particular shape and their experience of God did not fit into that bottle? Jesus compared the attempt to contain the power and vibrancy of a living and dynamic faith within inflexible religious traditions with the folly of putting new wine into old bottles. Indeed, attempts by church leaders to constrain new experiences of God and new Christian movements within the bottle of orthodoxy have led to many denominational splits in the past and to young people leaking out of the church in huge numbers in recent decades.
Albert Schweitzer only fulfilled his potential in God’s service when he stopped trying to shape and contain God with definitions and dogma and allowed God to shape him. His doubts over orthodox doctrine about Jesus caused him to give up preaching and to respond to the call to live out his faith in Jesus by setting up a hospital and leper colony in Africa. He concluded The Quest of the Historical Jesus: with these words:
“He comes to us as One unknown without a name, as of old by the lake-side He came to those men who knew Him not. He speaks to us the same word: 'Follow thou me!' and sets us to the tasks which He has to fulfil for our time. He commands. And to those who obey Him, whether they be wise or simple, He will reveal Himself in the toils, the conflicts, the sufferings which they shall pass through in His fellowship, and, as an ineffable mystery, they shall learn in their own experience Who He Is.”
Philip Sudworth
Friday, May 14, 2010
From THE CHRISTIAN POST SINGAPORE
Christianity Promotes Interfaith Relationships: NCCS President
Friday, May. 14, 2010 Posted: 1:51:34PM HKT
Bishop Dr Robert M Solomon, President of the National Council of Churches of Singapore, speaking at an event. (Photo: The Christian Post)
There is a popular misconception that the stronger the religious convictions, the deeper the divide between adherents of different religions. Many modern thinkers maintain that religion needs to be jettisoned for the sake of world peace and human progress.
Truth is, the Bible teaches Christians to build social ties with adherents of other religions.
This social acceptance comes from the core Christian belief in the existence of a transcendent yet personal God who created and saves humankind.
Knowing God as both Creator and Saviour shapes the way Christians relate with those of other faiths, according to the President of the National Council of Churches of Singapore (NCCS).
“As human beings created by the same God, there are many commonalities between Christians and their non-Christian neighbours as we encounter the same physical and social environment and often face the same issues because we live in the same world,” said Bishop Dr Robert M Solomon.
Speaking to The Christian Post during a special interview, Bishop Solomon stressed the need for Christians to relate with non-Christians at an interpersonal level. This will prevent stereotyping, he said.
At the same time, the Bible essentially teaches Jesus Christ as the only way to salvation. Here, unfortunately, Christians may adopt a belittling attitude toward other religions.
This is based on a simplistic understanding of the theological superiority of Christianity, an important Singapore theologian has recently argued.
To gain a proper understanding of other religions, it is necessary to grasp the human need for God as universal and existential.
“We are made for God, and we will experience a profound sense of restlessness until we are in communion with our Creator,” said Dr Roland Chia.
Non-Christian religions, he argued, can be viewed as “expressions of the human search for meaning.” Though theologically imperfect, they “contain many important spiritual, moral and human truths and values that correspond to the revelation of God in Scripture,” he expressed.
And so non-Christian religions can be seen as ‘preparations for the Gospel’, he highlighted. For this reason, Christians must treat non-Christians with due respect.
Christians should treat others with gentleness and respect even as they find opportunities to share their faith with the latter, according to Bishop Solomon.
“Evangelism is not making a sale,” said the NCCS President. “It is an expression of our love for others, and this love will always treat others with respect.”
Even if others are unwilling to hear them out, Christians “can still go on doing good to them and praying for their wellbeing,” he urged.
The Bible teaches a theological, not social, exclusiveness, the bishop highlighted.
Christians should not seek exclusiveness in their social relationships. That is, except where they involve idolatry or sinful practices.
He said: “We visit the same markets, fly on the same planes, and take part in the same sports. In these things we should not seek exclusiveness.”
On how Christians can promote inter-religious harmony, the bishop advised them not to cut themselves off from social interaction with people of other faiths. Then he encouraged Christians to have “as many deep personal friendships as possible with persons of other faiths in their workplaces and neighbourhoods.” Finally Christians should not do anything that is unnecessarily offensive to others.
Moreover Christians need not hesitate to participate in interfaith dialogue and cooperative humanitarian efforts.
Asked why many Christian leaders fear involvement in such areas, Bishop Solomon replied: “Why should they fear if they are confident of their faith.”
The worry may be rooted in a wrong idea of inter-religious dialogue to begin with.
Such dialogue, however, does not seek to amalgamate different religious groups.
Instead interfaith dialogue is an opportunity to develop friendships and explore common social concerns. These include the poor and environmental issues, the bishop said.
There is no contradiction between the Christian call and nation-building. Christians are to make positive contributions to the nation as witnesses of the good God they serve.
Bishop Solomon also highlighted social issues he felt Christians should address.
Firstly there is the welfare of foreign workers in Singapore. Secondly there are the effects of a fast-paced, consumerist lifestyle in relationships especially those in the family. Thirdly Christians could help the poor in society and bridging income disparities.
Christians can also contribute to the growing needs of the aging population. They can share their views on public square issues that affect their lives. And they can pray for their nation and society.
Christianity Promotes Interfaith Relationships: NCCS President
Friday, May. 14, 2010 Posted: 1:51:34PM HKT
Bishop Dr Robert M Solomon, President of the National Council of Churches of Singapore, speaking at an event. (Photo: The Christian Post)
There is a popular misconception that the stronger the religious convictions, the deeper the divide between adherents of different religions. Many modern thinkers maintain that religion needs to be jettisoned for the sake of world peace and human progress.
Truth is, the Bible teaches Christians to build social ties with adherents of other religions.
This social acceptance comes from the core Christian belief in the existence of a transcendent yet personal God who created and saves humankind.
Knowing God as both Creator and Saviour shapes the way Christians relate with those of other faiths, according to the President of the National Council of Churches of Singapore (NCCS).
“As human beings created by the same God, there are many commonalities between Christians and their non-Christian neighbours as we encounter the same physical and social environment and often face the same issues because we live in the same world,” said Bishop Dr Robert M Solomon.
Speaking to The Christian Post during a special interview, Bishop Solomon stressed the need for Christians to relate with non-Christians at an interpersonal level. This will prevent stereotyping, he said.
At the same time, the Bible essentially teaches Jesus Christ as the only way to salvation. Here, unfortunately, Christians may adopt a belittling attitude toward other religions.
This is based on a simplistic understanding of the theological superiority of Christianity, an important Singapore theologian has recently argued.
To gain a proper understanding of other religions, it is necessary to grasp the human need for God as universal and existential.
“We are made for God, and we will experience a profound sense of restlessness until we are in communion with our Creator,” said Dr Roland Chia.
Non-Christian religions, he argued, can be viewed as “expressions of the human search for meaning.” Though theologically imperfect, they “contain many important spiritual, moral and human truths and values that correspond to the revelation of God in Scripture,” he expressed.
And so non-Christian religions can be seen as ‘preparations for the Gospel’, he highlighted. For this reason, Christians must treat non-Christians with due respect.
Christians should treat others with gentleness and respect even as they find opportunities to share their faith with the latter, according to Bishop Solomon.
“Evangelism is not making a sale,” said the NCCS President. “It is an expression of our love for others, and this love will always treat others with respect.”
Even if others are unwilling to hear them out, Christians “can still go on doing good to them and praying for their wellbeing,” he urged.
The Bible teaches a theological, not social, exclusiveness, the bishop highlighted.
Christians should not seek exclusiveness in their social relationships. That is, except where they involve idolatry or sinful practices.
He said: “We visit the same markets, fly on the same planes, and take part in the same sports. In these things we should not seek exclusiveness.”
On how Christians can promote inter-religious harmony, the bishop advised them not to cut themselves off from social interaction with people of other faiths. Then he encouraged Christians to have “as many deep personal friendships as possible with persons of other faiths in their workplaces and neighbourhoods.” Finally Christians should not do anything that is unnecessarily offensive to others.
Moreover Christians need not hesitate to participate in interfaith dialogue and cooperative humanitarian efforts.
Asked why many Christian leaders fear involvement in such areas, Bishop Solomon replied: “Why should they fear if they are confident of their faith.”
The worry may be rooted in a wrong idea of inter-religious dialogue to begin with.
Such dialogue, however, does not seek to amalgamate different religious groups.
Instead interfaith dialogue is an opportunity to develop friendships and explore common social concerns. These include the poor and environmental issues, the bishop said.
There is no contradiction between the Christian call and nation-building. Christians are to make positive contributions to the nation as witnesses of the good God they serve.
Bishop Solomon also highlighted social issues he felt Christians should address.
Firstly there is the welfare of foreign workers in Singapore. Secondly there are the effects of a fast-paced, consumerist lifestyle in relationships especially those in the family. Thirdly Christians could help the poor in society and bridging income disparities.
Christians can also contribute to the growing needs of the aging population. They can share their views on public square issues that affect their lives. And they can pray for their nation and society.
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
ASIA
PACIFIC
ECUMENICAL NEWS
12 May 2010
A Christian and a Buddhist join hands to build communities of peace and reconciliation in Sri Lanka
SINGAPORE (APEN) – An inter-faith program initiated by two religious leaders based here could improve the quality of life of a community in Sri Lanka.
Reverend Yap Kim Hao, renowned Asian church and ecumenical leader, who is also chairman of the Chen Su Lan Trust and venerable Dr K Gunaratna, the Sinhalese Buddhist monk, and a spiritual advisor to Maha Karuna Society (Society for great kindness), have launched a project which is likely to benefit the people in the northern Sri Lankan town of Vavuniya.
Reverend Yap Kim Hao decided to join hands with the venerable monk Dr Gunaratna after seeing his earlier work in relief, rehabilitation and peace building. He believes that the Buddhist monk is apolitical and is honestly interested in the work of reconciliation and peace in Sri Lanka.
“His credentials as far I know came from his $ 2 million Singapore Red Cross rehabilitation project after the tsunami in 2005. I visited the site where he built 90 houses and a community center for the fishermen and for the wider community in Hambantota in Sri Lanka,” Yap Kim Hao told APENews.
The monk has sent container load of supplies to the rehabilitation camps and hospitals in Vavunia.
I was so impressed with his work that I decided to support him, Yap Kim Hao said.
Dr Gunaratna has a history of doing humanitarian service in other countries, including Myanmar.
He also has the credibility with the government and the Buddhist leadership in Sri Lanka.
“I have been with him in my three visits to Sri Lanka in the last few months and can vouch for that,” Yap Kim Hao noted.
Their efforts to set up a centre for service and reconciliation in Vavuniya began immediately after the war between the Sri Lankan government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam (LTTE), which came to an end in September last year.
The project was launched on 1 February this year in Vavuniya, where the majority of the population are Tamils.
The foundation stone laying ceremony for the Chen Su Lan Foundation Centre was held on half an acre of land donated by the Sri Lankan government.
Many influential people in Sri Lanka, including Mr Namal Rajapaksa, Member of Parliament, Mrs P M Charles, government agent and the Vavuniya district secretary, and Mr S N G Nathan of the Tamil National Alliance party, who is also the elected Mayor of Vavuniya and Chairman of the Urban Council, and others were instrumental in getting the land from the government.
The inter-faith leaders in Vavuniya are excited about having an innovative education and peace centre which they feel could be used to further the cause for peace and reconciliation.
Yap Kim Hao and Gunaratna feel that the centre should be managed by the leaders of the local inter-faith group. This will give them another opportunity to work together to render community services, initially, through education of English and computer skills.
The centre is being set up with the hope that there will be more interfaith relations and dialogue programs.
It is also proposed to be the base for educating the public about the different faiths and promoting activities leading to religious harmony, reconciliation and peace.
The breaking of the ground and the foundation stone laying ceremony was attended by Major General Kamal Gunaratne, commander of the 53rd division of the Sri Lankan army and currently in charge of the Internally Displaced Persons of the program and security of the area.
The two religious leaders from Singapore had met him in Vavuniya during their first visit to Sri Lanka immediately after the war. In Sinhalese culture, Buddhist monks are treated with great respect. Even generals and other high military personnel greet the monks in the customary manner of kneeling before them and bowing with clasped hands each time they meet and leave. This was something a church leader like Yap Kim Hao from Singapore cannot forget.
After a few days, they met General Kamal again at the larges Buddhist pagoda in Anuradhapura. There, under the historic Bodhi tree, which came from a sapling of the original tree where Gautama Buddha had his enlightenment, they prayed.
For Yap Kim Hao, “it was an inspiring moment.”
“An epiphany for me to be praying with my Buddhist friends under the tree of enlightenment,” Yap Kim Hao who is the first Asian bishop of the Methodist Church in Malaysia and Singapore remarked.
Mr S N G Nathan, Mr Senaratne, police chief in the area, Mr Upul Balasuriya and Ms Geetangalee, political leaders were among those who attended the formal launching of the centre in Vavuniya.
Religious representatives of the Buddhist, Hindu, Christian and Muslim faiths were also present to chant, offer prayers and bless the occasion.
The leaders of various religions have been engaged in dialogue in Vavuniya and “we intend to intensify the program and provide further interfaith education,” according to Yap Kim Hao.
He said that as a form of community service, we will first offer education in English and computer skills to students irrespective of their race or religion.
The center is expected to be an interfaith and intercultural center for peace and unity, and for teaching English language, information technology and other skills to the community.
“It will be a place of intersecting and interaction between the different religious groups in the community to be led by the leadership of the respective faith communities there,” Kim Hao said.
The education centre is a base and we need to explore how best we can make use of it to continue efforts for reconciliation and service to the community, the Christian leader added.
The needs are extensive and we have to use limited resources to address the crucial ones, according to Kim Hao
During an earlier visit to Sri Lanka, Kim Hao and Gunaratna supplied computers for the internally displaced persons in a rehabilitation camp in the town. Chairs and sanitary facilities were also made available to them which are now being put to good use at the rehabilitation camp.
During that visit, they also got an opportunity to visit a camp where the former LTTE combatants were undergoing re-education. There were 458 teenagers between the ages of 13-18 who were adjusting to the new situation. Kim Hao and Gunaratna felt encouraged that many of them were released to start a new life, when they visited the camp again after a few months.
As part of their garnering support from an international community, the Singapore-based leaders met some concerned people on the sidelines of the Christian Conference of Asia (CCA) general assembly held in Kuala Lumpur from 15-22 April.
Gunaratna went from Singapore to Kuala Lumpur for a few hours to have informal discussions with the Sri Lankans and others attending the assembly about the project, and sought their support and solidarity.
Kim Hao was already present at the general assembly as a former general secretary of the CCA.
He said: The civil war between the Sinhalese and the Tamils has ended. But the “survivors have to set their hearts on relief, rehabilitation and reconciliation for continued peace and harmony in the land.”
“War-wearied, the people are looking for whatever assistance they can be provided to start life from scratch and to restore their livelihood. They were made the wretched of the earth. The process of reconciliation is desperately needed to help one another to realize their hopes for a peaceful future.”
PACIFIC
ECUMENICAL NEWS
12 May 2010
A Christian and a Buddhist join hands to build communities of peace and reconciliation in Sri Lanka
SINGAPORE (APEN) – An inter-faith program initiated by two religious leaders based here could improve the quality of life of a community in Sri Lanka.
Reverend Yap Kim Hao, renowned Asian church and ecumenical leader, who is also chairman of the Chen Su Lan Trust and venerable Dr K Gunaratna, the Sinhalese Buddhist monk, and a spiritual advisor to Maha Karuna Society (Society for great kindness), have launched a project which is likely to benefit the people in the northern Sri Lankan town of Vavuniya.
Reverend Yap Kim Hao decided to join hands with the venerable monk Dr Gunaratna after seeing his earlier work in relief, rehabilitation and peace building. He believes that the Buddhist monk is apolitical and is honestly interested in the work of reconciliation and peace in Sri Lanka.
“His credentials as far I know came from his $ 2 million Singapore Red Cross rehabilitation project after the tsunami in 2005. I visited the site where he built 90 houses and a community center for the fishermen and for the wider community in Hambantota in Sri Lanka,” Yap Kim Hao told APENews.
The monk has sent container load of supplies to the rehabilitation camps and hospitals in Vavunia.
I was so impressed with his work that I decided to support him, Yap Kim Hao said.
Dr Gunaratna has a history of doing humanitarian service in other countries, including Myanmar.
He also has the credibility with the government and the Buddhist leadership in Sri Lanka.
“I have been with him in my three visits to Sri Lanka in the last few months and can vouch for that,” Yap Kim Hao noted.
Their efforts to set up a centre for service and reconciliation in Vavuniya began immediately after the war between the Sri Lankan government and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Elam (LTTE), which came to an end in September last year.
The project was launched on 1 February this year in Vavuniya, where the majority of the population are Tamils.
The foundation stone laying ceremony for the Chen Su Lan Foundation Centre was held on half an acre of land donated by the Sri Lankan government.
Many influential people in Sri Lanka, including Mr Namal Rajapaksa, Member of Parliament, Mrs P M Charles, government agent and the Vavuniya district secretary, and Mr S N G Nathan of the Tamil National Alliance party, who is also the elected Mayor of Vavuniya and Chairman of the Urban Council, and others were instrumental in getting the land from the government.
The inter-faith leaders in Vavuniya are excited about having an innovative education and peace centre which they feel could be used to further the cause for peace and reconciliation.
Yap Kim Hao and Gunaratna feel that the centre should be managed by the leaders of the local inter-faith group. This will give them another opportunity to work together to render community services, initially, through education of English and computer skills.
The centre is being set up with the hope that there will be more interfaith relations and dialogue programs.
It is also proposed to be the base for educating the public about the different faiths and promoting activities leading to religious harmony, reconciliation and peace.
The breaking of the ground and the foundation stone laying ceremony was attended by Major General Kamal Gunaratne, commander of the 53rd division of the Sri Lankan army and currently in charge of the Internally Displaced Persons of the program and security of the area.
The two religious leaders from Singapore had met him in Vavuniya during their first visit to Sri Lanka immediately after the war. In Sinhalese culture, Buddhist monks are treated with great respect. Even generals and other high military personnel greet the monks in the customary manner of kneeling before them and bowing with clasped hands each time they meet and leave. This was something a church leader like Yap Kim Hao from Singapore cannot forget.
After a few days, they met General Kamal again at the larges Buddhist pagoda in Anuradhapura. There, under the historic Bodhi tree, which came from a sapling of the original tree where Gautama Buddha had his enlightenment, they prayed.
For Yap Kim Hao, “it was an inspiring moment.”
“An epiphany for me to be praying with my Buddhist friends under the tree of enlightenment,” Yap Kim Hao who is the first Asian bishop of the Methodist Church in Malaysia and Singapore remarked.
Mr S N G Nathan, Mr Senaratne, police chief in the area, Mr Upul Balasuriya and Ms Geetangalee, political leaders were among those who attended the formal launching of the centre in Vavuniya.
Religious representatives of the Buddhist, Hindu, Christian and Muslim faiths were also present to chant, offer prayers and bless the occasion.
The leaders of various religions have been engaged in dialogue in Vavuniya and “we intend to intensify the program and provide further interfaith education,” according to Yap Kim Hao.
He said that as a form of community service, we will first offer education in English and computer skills to students irrespective of their race or religion.
The center is expected to be an interfaith and intercultural center for peace and unity, and for teaching English language, information technology and other skills to the community.
“It will be a place of intersecting and interaction between the different religious groups in the community to be led by the leadership of the respective faith communities there,” Kim Hao said.
The education centre is a base and we need to explore how best we can make use of it to continue efforts for reconciliation and service to the community, the Christian leader added.
The needs are extensive and we have to use limited resources to address the crucial ones, according to Kim Hao
During an earlier visit to Sri Lanka, Kim Hao and Gunaratna supplied computers for the internally displaced persons in a rehabilitation camp in the town. Chairs and sanitary facilities were also made available to them which are now being put to good use at the rehabilitation camp.
During that visit, they also got an opportunity to visit a camp where the former LTTE combatants were undergoing re-education. There were 458 teenagers between the ages of 13-18 who were adjusting to the new situation. Kim Hao and Gunaratna felt encouraged that many of them were released to start a new life, when they visited the camp again after a few months.
As part of their garnering support from an international community, the Singapore-based leaders met some concerned people on the sidelines of the Christian Conference of Asia (CCA) general assembly held in Kuala Lumpur from 15-22 April.
Gunaratna went from Singapore to Kuala Lumpur for a few hours to have informal discussions with the Sri Lankans and others attending the assembly about the project, and sought their support and solidarity.
Kim Hao was already present at the general assembly as a former general secretary of the CCA.
He said: The civil war between the Sinhalese and the Tamils has ended. But the “survivors have to set their hearts on relief, rehabilitation and reconciliation for continued peace and harmony in the land.”
“War-wearied, the people are looking for whatever assistance they can be provided to start life from scratch and to restore their livelihood. They were made the wretched of the earth. The process of reconciliation is desperately needed to help one another to realize their hopes for a peaceful future.”
Saturday, May 8, 2010
My Mentor in Theology for the 21st Century
RE-CONCEIVING GOD AND HUMANITY IN LIGHT OF TODAY'S ECOLOGICAL CONSCIOUSNESS: A BRIEF STATEMENT by Gordon D. Kaufman
We need to reorder human life in an ecologically responsible manner, if there is time.
GORDON D. KAUFMAN, Edward Mallinckrodt Jr. Professor of Divinity Emeritus at Harvard Divinity School, has written ten books and many articles and reviews. He is widely known for his interpretation of theology as an ongoing activity of fresh imaginative construction (and reconstruction) of our understanding of the world and of God, and of human life in the world and under God.
I
An unspoken presupposition taken for granted throughout much Christian history has been that faith and theology are concerned basically with what we today call the existential issues of life -- despair, guilt, death, meaninglessness, anxiety, sin, and so on, the problems that arise because we are self-conscious subjects and agents. God's love, mercy, forgiveness, justification by faith were said to address these issues of finitude and sinfulness, and enable life to go on. This sort of focus and imagery, I suggest, encourages an understanding of both the Christian God and Christian faith in fundamentally human-centered terms, and as bearing largely on certain personal problems.
This personalistic character of most Christian thinking was, of course, deeply connected (on the one hand) with the idea that we humans (unlike all the rest of creation) were created in the very "image of God" as the climax of creation, and (on the other hand) with the fact that the traditional conception of God was itself constructed on the model of the human agent. God was seen as a kind of cosmic person who created the world, who loved humankind and hence entered directly into human history itself to bring salvation to us. There was, thus, an intimate correlation of God and the human, and this gave the Christian symbol-system profound resources for addressing problems arising in connection with what was taken to be the distinctive mark of our humanness -- subjectivity and agency, our souls -- and Christians had confidence that there would always be a Christian answer to every really important issue that might arise for women and men anywhere and everywhere.
Today, however, we find ourselves beset by new unanticipated problems. With the advent of the atomic age, a half-century ago, a great many things began to change. It was becoming evident that we humans were attaining the power to destroy the very conditions that made our lives (and much other life as well) possible; and the notion that God would save us from ourselves, as we pursued this self-destructive project, became increasingly implausible. Though the nuclear challenge has now receded somewhat, the problem it symbolized has grown more pressing with our discovery -- beginning (for most of us) about thirty years or so ago -- that we are rapidly destroying the ecological conditions apart from which much of life could not exist. Moreover, it seems clear that it is we humans who have to take responsibility for this situation. Humanity, as we are beginning to understand, is deeply situated within the evolutionary-ecological life processes on planet Earth; and it is becoming increasingly difficult to imagine God as one who might (or even can) directly transform and make right what we are so rapidly destroying. So it is not really evident that God (as Christians have traditionally understood God) provides a solution to what is a major problem for men and women today: the ecological crisis.
This is a different kind of issue than Christians (or any other humans) have ever faced; and continuing to worship and serve this traditionally conceived God may even get in the way of our seeing clearly the depths and importance of this crisis. For now it is not a matter of finding a way to live with or overcome despair or meaninglessness or guilt or sinfulness, or other human suffering -- those profound problems of human subjectivity. It is a matter of the objective conditions that make life possible: we are destroying them, and it is we who must find a way to set them right.
This is not, of course, a specifically Christian or theistic problem: it is a problem in which all humans are implicated, and we are all called to do our part in its solution. So the central religious issue today confronting humankind is of a different order than ever before. And we may no longer claim that Christians have a corner on the solution to it; nor do Buddhists, or Jews, or the adherents of any other religion. What is now required is a reordering of the whole of human life around the globe in an ecologically responsible manner -- something heretofore never contemplated by any of our great religious traditions. All of humankind must learn to work together on this issue, or it will simply not be taken care of. We may not, of course, be able to solve this problem at all; we may already be past the point of no return.
II
What should be our specifically Christian response to this issue? One thing that we can, and I think should, do is get our own house into better order, so that our Christian meditation and worship, our activities and institutions -- as well as our thinking -- can help us address this exceedingly complex problem more effectively, instead of tending to conceal its seriousness from us. As a step in this direction, I want to propose a somewhat different understanding of God, humanity, and their relationship to each other, than that which Christians have generally held; a theological understanding that builds on our modern/postmodern evolutionary/ecological conceptions of the development and sustainability of life on planet Earth. To do this as compactly as possible, I will introduce three concepts here which, when taken together, articulate a rather different vision of human existence in the world under God.
First, I shall sketch briefly and explain what I call a biohistorical understanding of human being -- a way of conceiving the human that emphasizes our deep embeddedness in the web of life on planet Earth, while simultaneously attending to the significance of our radical distinctiveness as a form of life. Second, I want to call attention to what can be designated as serendipitous creativity manifest throughout the universe -- that is, the coming into being through time of the new and the novel. I use the conception of "creativity" here -- rather than the traditional idea of "God the creator" -- because it presents creation of the new and the novel as ongoing processes or events in the world, and does not call forth an image of a kind of "cosmic person" standing outside the world, manipulating it from without. Third, since the traditional idea of God's purposive activity -- a powerful teleological movement working in and through all cosmic and historical processes -- is almost impossible to reconcile with twentieth-century thinking about evolution and history, I propose to replace it with the more modest conception of what I call directional movements or trajectories that emerge spontaneously in the course of evolutionary and historical developments. This more open (even random) notion -- of serendipitous creativity manifesting itself in evolutionary and historical trajectories of various sorts -- fits in with, but significantly amplifies, today's thinking about cosmic, biological, and historicocultural processes.
Let us turn, then, to the notion of humans as biohistorical beings. Human historical development, over many millennia, has been as indispensable to our creation (as we today think of ourselves) as were the biological-evolutionary developments that preceded the emergence of humankind on planet Earth. As one rather obvious example of this point, consider the impact of the emergence of human awareness of, and knowledge about, both the natural world in which we humans live and our own human constitutions and possibilities. In the cultures of modernity human knowledge has become increasingly comprehensive, detailed, and technologized, providing us with considerable control over the physical and biological (as well as sociocultural and psychological) conditions of our existence. Indeed, we can say that we human beings, and the further course of our history, are no longer completely at the disposal of the natural order and natural powers that brought us into being in the way we were, say, ten millennia ago. Through our various symbolisms and knowledges, skills and technologics -- we humans have gained some measure of transcendence over the nature of which we are part. And in consequence (for good or ill) we have utterly transformed the face of the earth and are beginning to push on into outer space; and we are becoming capable of altering the actual genetic make-up of future human generations.
It is qua our development into beings shaped in many respects by historicocultural processes of this sort -- that is, humanly created, not merely natural biological, processes -- that we humans have gained these increasing measures of control over the natural order, as well as over the onward movement of history. In significant respects, thus, our historicity (as we may call it) -- our being shaped decisively by an evolution and history that has given us power ourselves to shape future history in significant ways -- is a distinctive mark of our humanness. Even our human biological nature has been shaped and informed by certain important historical developments; and the organism that finally emerged as human, as the anthropologist Clifford Geertz has pointed out, is "both a cultural and a biological product."(1) This historical development of human enculturedness (and the consequent growth of human symbolic behavior) appears to have had particularly strong effects on the biological evolution of the brain, as brain-scientist Terrence Deacon has argued.(2) And our present biological organisms, if not given extensive cultural programming from birth on, would be so seriously deficient that they could not function. As Geertz sums up the matter: "We are. . . incomplete or unfinished animals who complete or finish ourselves through culture."(3) We are, then, all the way down to the deepest layers of our distinctively human existence, not simply biological beings, animals; we are biohistorical beings.
Despite the great powers that our knowledges and technologies have given us, we are all aware that our transcendence of the natural orders within which we have emerged is far from adequate to assure our ongoing human existence; indeed, the ecological crisis of our time has brought to our attention the fact that precisely through the exercise of our growing power on planet Earth we have been destroying the very conditions that make life possible. Paradoxically, thus, our understanding of ourselves and of the world in which we live, and our growing power over many of the circumstances on planet Earth that have seemed to us undesirable, may in the end lead to our self-destruction.
I want to turn now to the other two concepts I mentioned earlier. I suggested that we think of the cosmos as constituted by (a) cosmic serendipitous creativity which (b) manifests itself through trajectories of various sorts working themselves out in longer and shorter stretches of time. There are, of course, many cosmic trajectories, moving in quite different directions, and here on planet Earth there have been many quite diverse evolutionary trajectories producing the billions of species of life. But, for the problems with which we are concerned here -- specifically, the enormous ecological damage for which we humans are responsible -- it is important that we consider briefly that one trajectory that eventuated in the spread and development of human life over all the earth, that cosmic trajectory that issued in the creation of beings with historicity. Our human existence -- its purposiveness, its greatly varied complexes of social/moral/cultural/religious values and meanings, its virtually unlimited imaginative powers and glorious creativity, its horrible failures and gross evils, its historicity -- all this has come into being on this trajectory, this manifestation of the serendipitous creativity in the cosmos that has given us men and women our existence. We do not know what direction this evolutionary-historical trajectory will move in the future -- perhaps toward the opening of ever new possibilities for human beings, as we increasingly take responsibility for our lives and our future; perhaps going beyond humanity and historicity altogether, however difficult it is to image how that should be understood; perhaps coming to an end in the total destruction of human existence.
Construing the cosmos in this way, as constituted by cosmic serendipitous creativity that manifests itself in trajectories of various sorts, can help us humans discern our place within the evolutionary-ecological universe that is our home. Let us note five points in this connection. First, this approach provides us with a frame within which we can characterize quite accurately, and can unify into an overall vision, what seems actually to have happened, so far as we know, in the course of cosmic evolution and history. Second, this approach gives a significant, but not dominant, place and meaning to the distinctive biohistorical character of human life within the cosmic process; and in so doing it identifies the ecological niche that humankind occupies within this process as itself, necessarily, a biohistorical one. The biohistorical features of our human ecological niche themselves make possible, third, a way of thinking that can assist communities (and individuals) to understand better and assess more fully both the adequacy of the biological context of our lives and the import of the historical sociocultural developments through which we are living, thus enabling us to take up more responsible roles within these contexts and developments. Fourth, because this approach highlights the linkage of serendipitous cosmic creativity with our humanness and the humane values so important to us, as well as with our ecological niche, it can support hope (but not certainty) for the future of our human world -- hope for truly creative movement toward ecologically and morally responsible human existence. Finally, fifth, a hope of this sort, grounded on the mystery of creativity in the world -- a creativity that, on our trajectory, evidences itself in part through our own creative powers -- can help motivate women and men to devote their lives to bringing about this more humane and ecologically rightly ordered world to which we aspire.
This frame of orientation or vision of reality is not, of course, in any way forced upon us: it can be appropriated only by means of our own personal and collective decisions, our own acts of faith in face of the ultimate mystery of life and the world. We humans today are being drawn beyond our present condition and order of life by creative impulses in our biohistorical trajectory suggesting decisions and movements now required of us. If we respond, in appropriately creative ways, to the historical and ecological forces now impinging upon us on all sides, there is a possibility -- though no certainty -- that a niche for humankind, better fitted to the wider ecological order on earth than our present niche, may be brought into being. However, if we fail to so respond, it seems likely that we humans may not survive much longer. Are we willing to commit ourselves to live and act in accord with the imperatives laid upon us by the biohistorical situation in which we find ourselves, in the hope that our actions will be supported and enhanced by cosmic serendipitously creative events? In my view it is this kind of hope, and faith, and commitment to which the trajectory that has brought us into being now calls us.
III
It is obvious, I presume, that thinking of God in the way I am suggesting in these remarks -- as cosmic serendipitous creativity manifesting itself in a wide range of trajectories -- will evoke a significantly different faith and hope and piety than that associated with the Christian symbol-system as traditionally interpreted. Since creativity is present and manifest throughout the cosmos, as well as in all human cultural and religious traditions, this understanding of God should directly undercut the arrogant stance of much traditional Christianity toward other religious and secular communities, and vis-à-vis the rest of the natural order. We Christians may no longer consider ourselves to be at the center of things, authorized in what we say and do by God's special revelation to us. Nevertheless, important continuities with traditional Christian understandings still remain here, continuities significant enough, in my opinion, to warrant considering this picture of the world, and the human place within it, appropriate for Christian faith today.
First and most important. Understanding the ultimate mystery of things, God, in terms of the metaphor of serendipitous creativity -- instead of in terms of the essentially anthropomorphic creator/lord/father metaphors of the tradition -- facilitates (more effectively than the traditional imagery did) maintaining a decisive qualitative distinction (though not an ontological separation) between God and the created order. Such a distinction, perhaps the most important contribution of monotheistic religious traditions to human self-understanding, provides the basis for regarding God (that is, creativity) as the sole appropriate focus for human devotion and worship, that which alone can provide proper overall orientation for human life. All other realities, being finite, transitory, and corruptible, easily become dangerous idols which, when worshiped and made the central focus of human orientation, bring disaster into human affairs. This important distinction between God and the idols is emphasized in the symbolic picture I am sketching here.
Second, in keeping with this first point. Conceiving humans as biohistorical beings who have emerged on one of the countless creative trajectories moving through the cosmos -- instead of as the climax of all creation, distinguished from all other creatures as the very "image of God" -- makes it clear that we humans are indissolubly a part of the created order, and not in any way to be confused with the serendipitous creativity which has produced not only us but the entire cosmos, in all its complexity, order, and beauty. So in the picture I am sketching here the too-easy human-centeredness (and Christian-centeredness) of traditional Christian thinking is thoroughly undercut. We humans can exist only (as far as we are aware) within the boundaries and conditions of life found on the particular trajectory within the created order in which we have appeared.
Though strikingly different in important respects from some traditional Christian emphases, this understanding of God and of the human is clearly a form of radical monotheism (to use H. R. Niebuhr's term) that is appropriate to the constraints of modern/postmodern existence and thinking. Moreover, it is a conception that can be developed into a full-orbed Christian interpretation of human faith and life, if the creativity that is God is brought into significant connection with the poignancy and power of the story and character of Jesus -- regarded (by Christians) as what Colossians 1 called the "image of the invisible God," an image that is paradigmatic for the human sphere of life. I therefore propose this reconstruction of the conceptions of God and humanity (much too briefly sketched here) as providing a way for Christian faith -- and perhaps some other faiths as well -- to reconstitute themselves in light of our contemporary evolutionary/ecological sensibility and knowledge. Such a reconstitution should fit us much more effectively (than have the more traditional forms of Christian symbolization) to address today's ecological crisis -- a crisis likely to be with us for the foreseeable future.(4)
Notes
1. [Back to text] Clifford Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures (New York: Basic Books, 1973), 67.
2. [Back to text] See Terrence Deacon, The Symbolic Species: the Co-evolution of Language and the Brain (New York: Norton, 1997).
3. [Back to text] Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures, 49.
4. [Back to text] A more fully elaborated version of the position briefly sketched here can be found in my contribution to Christianity in the Twenty-First Century, ed. Deborah A. Brown (New York: Crossroad, 1999), entitled "Ecological Consciousness and the Symbol 'God.' " Both this latter article and the present essay are based on the theological position developed in In Face of Mystery: A Constructive Theology (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1993). In this book will also be found a fuller elaboration of the christological connections hinted at in the concluding paragraph of this article.
Copyright of Cross Currents is the property of Association for Religion & Intellectual Life and its content may not be copied without the copyright holder's express written permission except for the print or download capabilities of the retrieval software used for access. This content is intended solely for the use of the individual user. Source: Cross Currents, Spring/Summer 2000, Vol. 50 Issue 1-2
RE-CONCEIVING GOD AND HUMANITY IN LIGHT OF TODAY'S ECOLOGICAL CONSCIOUSNESS: A BRIEF STATEMENT by Gordon D. Kaufman
We need to reorder human life in an ecologically responsible manner, if there is time.
GORDON D. KAUFMAN, Edward Mallinckrodt Jr. Professor of Divinity Emeritus at Harvard Divinity School, has written ten books and many articles and reviews. He is widely known for his interpretation of theology as an ongoing activity of fresh imaginative construction (and reconstruction) of our understanding of the world and of God, and of human life in the world and under God.
I
An unspoken presupposition taken for granted throughout much Christian history has been that faith and theology are concerned basically with what we today call the existential issues of life -- despair, guilt, death, meaninglessness, anxiety, sin, and so on, the problems that arise because we are self-conscious subjects and agents. God's love, mercy, forgiveness, justification by faith were said to address these issues of finitude and sinfulness, and enable life to go on. This sort of focus and imagery, I suggest, encourages an understanding of both the Christian God and Christian faith in fundamentally human-centered terms, and as bearing largely on certain personal problems.
This personalistic character of most Christian thinking was, of course, deeply connected (on the one hand) with the idea that we humans (unlike all the rest of creation) were created in the very "image of God" as the climax of creation, and (on the other hand) with the fact that the traditional conception of God was itself constructed on the model of the human agent. God was seen as a kind of cosmic person who created the world, who loved humankind and hence entered directly into human history itself to bring salvation to us. There was, thus, an intimate correlation of God and the human, and this gave the Christian symbol-system profound resources for addressing problems arising in connection with what was taken to be the distinctive mark of our humanness -- subjectivity and agency, our souls -- and Christians had confidence that there would always be a Christian answer to every really important issue that might arise for women and men anywhere and everywhere.
Today, however, we find ourselves beset by new unanticipated problems. With the advent of the atomic age, a half-century ago, a great many things began to change. It was becoming evident that we humans were attaining the power to destroy the very conditions that made our lives (and much other life as well) possible; and the notion that God would save us from ourselves, as we pursued this self-destructive project, became increasingly implausible. Though the nuclear challenge has now receded somewhat, the problem it symbolized has grown more pressing with our discovery -- beginning (for most of us) about thirty years or so ago -- that we are rapidly destroying the ecological conditions apart from which much of life could not exist. Moreover, it seems clear that it is we humans who have to take responsibility for this situation. Humanity, as we are beginning to understand, is deeply situated within the evolutionary-ecological life processes on planet Earth; and it is becoming increasingly difficult to imagine God as one who might (or even can) directly transform and make right what we are so rapidly destroying. So it is not really evident that God (as Christians have traditionally understood God) provides a solution to what is a major problem for men and women today: the ecological crisis.
This is a different kind of issue than Christians (or any other humans) have ever faced; and continuing to worship and serve this traditionally conceived God may even get in the way of our seeing clearly the depths and importance of this crisis. For now it is not a matter of finding a way to live with or overcome despair or meaninglessness or guilt or sinfulness, or other human suffering -- those profound problems of human subjectivity. It is a matter of the objective conditions that make life possible: we are destroying them, and it is we who must find a way to set them right.
This is not, of course, a specifically Christian or theistic problem: it is a problem in which all humans are implicated, and we are all called to do our part in its solution. So the central religious issue today confronting humankind is of a different order than ever before. And we may no longer claim that Christians have a corner on the solution to it; nor do Buddhists, or Jews, or the adherents of any other religion. What is now required is a reordering of the whole of human life around the globe in an ecologically responsible manner -- something heretofore never contemplated by any of our great religious traditions. All of humankind must learn to work together on this issue, or it will simply not be taken care of. We may not, of course, be able to solve this problem at all; we may already be past the point of no return.
II
What should be our specifically Christian response to this issue? One thing that we can, and I think should, do is get our own house into better order, so that our Christian meditation and worship, our activities and institutions -- as well as our thinking -- can help us address this exceedingly complex problem more effectively, instead of tending to conceal its seriousness from us. As a step in this direction, I want to propose a somewhat different understanding of God, humanity, and their relationship to each other, than that which Christians have generally held; a theological understanding that builds on our modern/postmodern evolutionary/ecological conceptions of the development and sustainability of life on planet Earth. To do this as compactly as possible, I will introduce three concepts here which, when taken together, articulate a rather different vision of human existence in the world under God.
First, I shall sketch briefly and explain what I call a biohistorical understanding of human being -- a way of conceiving the human that emphasizes our deep embeddedness in the web of life on planet Earth, while simultaneously attending to the significance of our radical distinctiveness as a form of life. Second, I want to call attention to what can be designated as serendipitous creativity manifest throughout the universe -- that is, the coming into being through time of the new and the novel. I use the conception of "creativity" here -- rather than the traditional idea of "God the creator" -- because it presents creation of the new and the novel as ongoing processes or events in the world, and does not call forth an image of a kind of "cosmic person" standing outside the world, manipulating it from without. Third, since the traditional idea of God's purposive activity -- a powerful teleological movement working in and through all cosmic and historical processes -- is almost impossible to reconcile with twentieth-century thinking about evolution and history, I propose to replace it with the more modest conception of what I call directional movements or trajectories that emerge spontaneously in the course of evolutionary and historical developments. This more open (even random) notion -- of serendipitous creativity manifesting itself in evolutionary and historical trajectories of various sorts -- fits in with, but significantly amplifies, today's thinking about cosmic, biological, and historicocultural processes.
Let us turn, then, to the notion of humans as biohistorical beings. Human historical development, over many millennia, has been as indispensable to our creation (as we today think of ourselves) as were the biological-evolutionary developments that preceded the emergence of humankind on planet Earth. As one rather obvious example of this point, consider the impact of the emergence of human awareness of, and knowledge about, both the natural world in which we humans live and our own human constitutions and possibilities. In the cultures of modernity human knowledge has become increasingly comprehensive, detailed, and technologized, providing us with considerable control over the physical and biological (as well as sociocultural and psychological) conditions of our existence. Indeed, we can say that we human beings, and the further course of our history, are no longer completely at the disposal of the natural order and natural powers that brought us into being in the way we were, say, ten millennia ago. Through our various symbolisms and knowledges, skills and technologics -- we humans have gained some measure of transcendence over the nature of which we are part. And in consequence (for good or ill) we have utterly transformed the face of the earth and are beginning to push on into outer space; and we are becoming capable of altering the actual genetic make-up of future human generations.
It is qua our development into beings shaped in many respects by historicocultural processes of this sort -- that is, humanly created, not merely natural biological, processes -- that we humans have gained these increasing measures of control over the natural order, as well as over the onward movement of history. In significant respects, thus, our historicity (as we may call it) -- our being shaped decisively by an evolution and history that has given us power ourselves to shape future history in significant ways -- is a distinctive mark of our humanness. Even our human biological nature has been shaped and informed by certain important historical developments; and the organism that finally emerged as human, as the anthropologist Clifford Geertz has pointed out, is "both a cultural and a biological product."(1) This historical development of human enculturedness (and the consequent growth of human symbolic behavior) appears to have had particularly strong effects on the biological evolution of the brain, as brain-scientist Terrence Deacon has argued.(2) And our present biological organisms, if not given extensive cultural programming from birth on, would be so seriously deficient that they could not function. As Geertz sums up the matter: "We are. . . incomplete or unfinished animals who complete or finish ourselves through culture."(3) We are, then, all the way down to the deepest layers of our distinctively human existence, not simply biological beings, animals; we are biohistorical beings.
Despite the great powers that our knowledges and technologies have given us, we are all aware that our transcendence of the natural orders within which we have emerged is far from adequate to assure our ongoing human existence; indeed, the ecological crisis of our time has brought to our attention the fact that precisely through the exercise of our growing power on planet Earth we have been destroying the very conditions that make life possible. Paradoxically, thus, our understanding of ourselves and of the world in which we live, and our growing power over many of the circumstances on planet Earth that have seemed to us undesirable, may in the end lead to our self-destruction.
I want to turn now to the other two concepts I mentioned earlier. I suggested that we think of the cosmos as constituted by (a) cosmic serendipitous creativity which (b) manifests itself through trajectories of various sorts working themselves out in longer and shorter stretches of time. There are, of course, many cosmic trajectories, moving in quite different directions, and here on planet Earth there have been many quite diverse evolutionary trajectories producing the billions of species of life. But, for the problems with which we are concerned here -- specifically, the enormous ecological damage for which we humans are responsible -- it is important that we consider briefly that one trajectory that eventuated in the spread and development of human life over all the earth, that cosmic trajectory that issued in the creation of beings with historicity. Our human existence -- its purposiveness, its greatly varied complexes of social/moral/cultural/religious values and meanings, its virtually unlimited imaginative powers and glorious creativity, its horrible failures and gross evils, its historicity -- all this has come into being on this trajectory, this manifestation of the serendipitous creativity in the cosmos that has given us men and women our existence. We do not know what direction this evolutionary-historical trajectory will move in the future -- perhaps toward the opening of ever new possibilities for human beings, as we increasingly take responsibility for our lives and our future; perhaps going beyond humanity and historicity altogether, however difficult it is to image how that should be understood; perhaps coming to an end in the total destruction of human existence.
Construing the cosmos in this way, as constituted by cosmic serendipitous creativity that manifests itself in trajectories of various sorts, can help us humans discern our place within the evolutionary-ecological universe that is our home. Let us note five points in this connection. First, this approach provides us with a frame within which we can characterize quite accurately, and can unify into an overall vision, what seems actually to have happened, so far as we know, in the course of cosmic evolution and history. Second, this approach gives a significant, but not dominant, place and meaning to the distinctive biohistorical character of human life within the cosmic process; and in so doing it identifies the ecological niche that humankind occupies within this process as itself, necessarily, a biohistorical one. The biohistorical features of our human ecological niche themselves make possible, third, a way of thinking that can assist communities (and individuals) to understand better and assess more fully both the adequacy of the biological context of our lives and the import of the historical sociocultural developments through which we are living, thus enabling us to take up more responsible roles within these contexts and developments. Fourth, because this approach highlights the linkage of serendipitous cosmic creativity with our humanness and the humane values so important to us, as well as with our ecological niche, it can support hope (but not certainty) for the future of our human world -- hope for truly creative movement toward ecologically and morally responsible human existence. Finally, fifth, a hope of this sort, grounded on the mystery of creativity in the world -- a creativity that, on our trajectory, evidences itself in part through our own creative powers -- can help motivate women and men to devote their lives to bringing about this more humane and ecologically rightly ordered world to which we aspire.
This frame of orientation or vision of reality is not, of course, in any way forced upon us: it can be appropriated only by means of our own personal and collective decisions, our own acts of faith in face of the ultimate mystery of life and the world. We humans today are being drawn beyond our present condition and order of life by creative impulses in our biohistorical trajectory suggesting decisions and movements now required of us. If we respond, in appropriately creative ways, to the historical and ecological forces now impinging upon us on all sides, there is a possibility -- though no certainty -- that a niche for humankind, better fitted to the wider ecological order on earth than our present niche, may be brought into being. However, if we fail to so respond, it seems likely that we humans may not survive much longer. Are we willing to commit ourselves to live and act in accord with the imperatives laid upon us by the biohistorical situation in which we find ourselves, in the hope that our actions will be supported and enhanced by cosmic serendipitously creative events? In my view it is this kind of hope, and faith, and commitment to which the trajectory that has brought us into being now calls us.
III
It is obvious, I presume, that thinking of God in the way I am suggesting in these remarks -- as cosmic serendipitous creativity manifesting itself in a wide range of trajectories -- will evoke a significantly different faith and hope and piety than that associated with the Christian symbol-system as traditionally interpreted. Since creativity is present and manifest throughout the cosmos, as well as in all human cultural and religious traditions, this understanding of God should directly undercut the arrogant stance of much traditional Christianity toward other religious and secular communities, and vis-à-vis the rest of the natural order. We Christians may no longer consider ourselves to be at the center of things, authorized in what we say and do by God's special revelation to us. Nevertheless, important continuities with traditional Christian understandings still remain here, continuities significant enough, in my opinion, to warrant considering this picture of the world, and the human place within it, appropriate for Christian faith today.
First and most important. Understanding the ultimate mystery of things, God, in terms of the metaphor of serendipitous creativity -- instead of in terms of the essentially anthropomorphic creator/lord/father metaphors of the tradition -- facilitates (more effectively than the traditional imagery did) maintaining a decisive qualitative distinction (though not an ontological separation) between God and the created order. Such a distinction, perhaps the most important contribution of monotheistic religious traditions to human self-understanding, provides the basis for regarding God (that is, creativity) as the sole appropriate focus for human devotion and worship, that which alone can provide proper overall orientation for human life. All other realities, being finite, transitory, and corruptible, easily become dangerous idols which, when worshiped and made the central focus of human orientation, bring disaster into human affairs. This important distinction between God and the idols is emphasized in the symbolic picture I am sketching here.
Second, in keeping with this first point. Conceiving humans as biohistorical beings who have emerged on one of the countless creative trajectories moving through the cosmos -- instead of as the climax of all creation, distinguished from all other creatures as the very "image of God" -- makes it clear that we humans are indissolubly a part of the created order, and not in any way to be confused with the serendipitous creativity which has produced not only us but the entire cosmos, in all its complexity, order, and beauty. So in the picture I am sketching here the too-easy human-centeredness (and Christian-centeredness) of traditional Christian thinking is thoroughly undercut. We humans can exist only (as far as we are aware) within the boundaries and conditions of life found on the particular trajectory within the created order in which we have appeared.
Though strikingly different in important respects from some traditional Christian emphases, this understanding of God and of the human is clearly a form of radical monotheism (to use H. R. Niebuhr's term) that is appropriate to the constraints of modern/postmodern existence and thinking. Moreover, it is a conception that can be developed into a full-orbed Christian interpretation of human faith and life, if the creativity that is God is brought into significant connection with the poignancy and power of the story and character of Jesus -- regarded (by Christians) as what Colossians 1 called the "image of the invisible God," an image that is paradigmatic for the human sphere of life. I therefore propose this reconstruction of the conceptions of God and humanity (much too briefly sketched here) as providing a way for Christian faith -- and perhaps some other faiths as well -- to reconstitute themselves in light of our contemporary evolutionary/ecological sensibility and knowledge. Such a reconstitution should fit us much more effectively (than have the more traditional forms of Christian symbolization) to address today's ecological crisis -- a crisis likely to be with us for the foreseeable future.(4)
Notes
1. [Back to text] Clifford Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures (New York: Basic Books, 1973), 67.
2. [Back to text] See Terrence Deacon, The Symbolic Species: the Co-evolution of Language and the Brain (New York: Norton, 1997).
3. [Back to text] Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures, 49.
4. [Back to text] A more fully elaborated version of the position briefly sketched here can be found in my contribution to Christianity in the Twenty-First Century, ed. Deborah A. Brown (New York: Crossroad, 1999), entitled "Ecological Consciousness and the Symbol 'God.' " Both this latter article and the present essay are based on the theological position developed in In Face of Mystery: A Constructive Theology (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1993). In this book will also be found a fuller elaboration of the christological connections hinted at in the concluding paragraph of this article.
Copyright of Cross Currents is the property of Association for Religion & Intellectual Life and its content may not be copied without the copyright holder's express written permission except for the print or download capabilities of the retrieval software used for access. This content is intended solely for the use of the individual user. Source: Cross Currents, Spring/Summer 2000, Vol. 50 Issue 1-2
Sunday, May 2, 2010
Dining with Cornelius
Acts 11:1-18, Psalm 148, Revelation 21:1-6, John 13:31-35
Free Community Church
May 2, 2010
I forgot to put in my preaching dates in my calendar and was prompted by Su Lin’s posting on Wednesday followed by an SMS the next day. My hope of a relaxing week evaporated. As it turned out, the Lectionary readings are fixed and the roster of regular preachers follow an order and the theme for this Sunday happen to be The Inclusive God, an important concept.
The passage in Acts finds Peter the “Pope” of the emerging church in Jerusalem after the death of Jesus dreaming about food on the rooftop in Joppa. The Psalmist sings about how inclusive God the Creator is in the entire creation. Revelation reveals the new thing that the Divine Creator is doing. And the Gospel John commands us to engage in a relationship of love for one another.
The critical charge leveled at Peter by exclusive Pharisees was “Why did you go to uncircumcised men and eat with them?” Behind this question is that in traditional Jewish law circumcised Jews do not eat with uncircumcised Gentiles. There is a gulf or a chasm between the two communities. Jews do not sit around the dinner table or floor with the Gentiles. Jews exclude Gentiles.
Table fellowship is an important act in the ministry of Jesus as we recall. When Jesus encountered the tax collector up in the tree He stopped and called up to him, “Zacchaeus, come down quickly, for today I must stay at your house” (Lk 19:5). The response of the crowd is telling. “He has gone to stay at the house of a sinner” (Lk 19:).
In this feature of table-fellowship Jesus shared with the marginalized, oppressed, rejected, despised and stigmatised. The Pharisees questioned Jesus’ behavior by asking his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?” (Mt 9:11; see also Mk 2:16; Lk 5:30). They further made the accusation against him. “This man welcomes sinners and eats with them” (Lk 15:2). Jesus was even maligned by some of being “a glutton and a drunkard” (Mt 11:19).
It is our custom that we eat together as family members for bonding and with others to establish friendships, strengthen relationships and develop trust. But increasingly we are not spending enough time for table fellowship these days and eat and run at best. Many kitchens in our homes are closed and we depend upon kopitiam kitchens in the community. As a result we dine alone and exclude others.
The German theologian Walter Kasper points out,
In the east, even today, to share a meal with someone is a guarantee of peace, trust, brotherhood and forgiveness; the shared table is a shared life. In Judaism fellowship at table had the special meaning of fellowship in the sight of God. Each person at the table ate a piece of broken bread and thus received a share in the blessing spoken by the master of the house over the whole loaf. Finally, every meal is a sign of the coming eschatological meal and the eschatological fellowship with God.”
The American theologian Albert Nolan saw “the impact these meals must have had upon the poor and the sinners. By accepting them as friends and equals Jesus had taken away their shame, humiliation and guilt. By showing them that they mattered to him as people he gave them a sense of dignity and released them from their old captivity. The physical contact which he must have had with them at table (Jn 13:25) and which he obviously never dreamed of disallowing (Lk 7:38-39) must have made them feel clean and acceptable. Moreover because Jesus was looked upon as a man of God and a prophet, they would have interpreted his gesture of friendship as God’s approval of them.”
Whenever the Church gathers at the Lord’s Table, the Eucharistic table, sinners, the broken, the marginalized are reconciled to God and to the human family. It is a table of inclusion and none is excluded.
It was not just a simple meal that Peter had with Cornelius with his relatives and close friends in cosmopolitan Caesarear. Luke had given us a fuller account of this event in Chapter 10. Cornelius was a Roman Centurion, a commanding officer, a Gentile but a devout man who fears God. He sent emissaries to Joppa to look for Peter and invited him to come to his house. Meanwhile Peter had his vision in Joppa where he saw “something like a sheet coming down, being lowered to the ground by its four corners. In it were all kinds of four-footed creatures and reptiles and birds of the air” (Acts 10:11-14) for him to eat. Peter hesitated for tradition regarded them as unclean and profane. But he was convinced by God who said “What God has made clean, you must not call profane.”
With that perception Peter leapt over the wall that separated the Jews from the Gentiles, crossed the line between the sacred and the profane and broke down the barriers between clean and unclean. He then proclaimed to the family of Cornelius and said: “I truly understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him.” After he baptized all of them they praised God by saying: “Then God has given even to the Gentiles the repentance that leads to life.” (Lk 11:18).
In this account in Acts, the Divine Creator regards all living things as sacred and clean. In Psalm 148 the Psalmist praises the Creator for sun and moon, heaven and waters, fire and hail, snow and frost, stormy winds, mountain and hills, fruit trees and cedars as sacred objects. Like Luke wild animals and cattle, creeping things and flying things are clean creatures. The Psalmist also included kings, princes and rulers of the earth and all peoples, young men and women alike and old and young together as persons of sacred worth. This is what Revelation teaches us about the Creator making all things new. This is the grand vision before us.
Jamie was on target when she preached last Sunday about our concept of God and how we shape our lives according how we view God to be. Both of us have our tertiary education in biology and I went on to study theology. We have been influenced by the scientific method and trained to analyze and find out the cause and effects of any event. We keep an open mind. When she visited me last week for lunch together I shared with her the reading of new theological book published in 2006 with the title “Theology Matters”
The author raised the issue of different images of God in today’s complex and challenging world. He wrote that “Christian tradition is saturated with personal images of the Divine: father, son, advocate, teacher, rabbi, shepherd, mother, lover, friend. Jamie preached that too and added other interesting images including that of driver, master chef and even GPS to navigate our travel on this earth.
The leading feminist theologian in our time, Sallie MacFaque is critical of the dominant traditional patriarchal and monarchic God images. Whenever I hear only of Father God even my masculine ego is troubled. Whenever I hear only of Lord God and King I feel uneasy. We leave out women, half of humankind, who hold up the earth. These images convey domination and hierarchies in relationships. That is why the Jews were so critical of Peter dining with the Gentile, Cornelius, one of another tribe, race and ethnicity.
They have constructed the image of God as the one who played favorites and regard themselves as Chosen People. Their God is the King of the Hill and subjugated all other tribes and nations in warfare and killing the innocent women and children of their enemies in battle. All these is chronicled and glorified in the pages of the Old Testament. Yahweh is the victorious warrior who rules over all and is the Judge and the Lawgiver. We are pre-occupied with sin and salvation. Jews have nothing to do with the non-Jews or Gentiles for God is partial only to Jews. They and they alone are God’s people and all others are even referred to as “no-people.”
The Jews enacted the purity laws and ceremonial rituals to exclude others in their select and elite community. Leviticus chapters 11–26 listed in detail clean and unclean foods, rituals after childbirth or a menstrual cycle, regulations for skin infections and contaminated clothing or furniture, prohibitions against contact with a human corpse or dead animal, agricultural guidelines about planting seeds and mating animals, and decrees about lawful sexual relationships, keeping the Sabbath, and forsaking idols These legal and religious codes encompassed every aspect of being human—birth, death, sex, gender, health, economics, jurisprudence, social relations, hygiene, marriage, behavior, and certainly ethnicity, for Gentiles were automatically considered impure.
It may come as a surprise to many to learn that what we view early Christianity or traditional theology a progressive force at that time. Judaism was the conservative force. Early Christianity was a force then that is the cutting edge and the radical religious movement of the day. They were the ones who explored the radical and explosive new thing of including the Gentiles in the early Church.
It was with this understanding of God that they acted. Jesus, Peter and Paul reacted in promoting inclusivity. I must quickly add that inclusivity does not imply uniformity.
We need to value the distinctiveness and uniqueness of God’s people.
“A wise teacher was speaking to a group of eager young students. He gave them the assignment to go out and find a small, unnoticed flower somewhere. He asked them to study the flower for a long time. “Get a magnifying glass and study the delicate veins in the leaves, and notice the nuances and shades of color. Turn the leaves slowly and observe their symmetry. And remember that this flower might have gone unnoticed and unappreciated if you had not found and admired it.” After the class returned, the teacher observed, “People are like that. Each one is different, carefully crafted, uniquely endowed. But you have to spend time with them to know this. So many people go unnoticed and unappreciated because no one has ever taken time with them and admired their uniqueness.” The book that I mentioned earlier has for its front cover the details of a green leaf.
It is time for us to more seriously affirm diversity and recognize differences in the human situation. We are to embrace the principle of inclusivity in spite of our differences and respect them. We are to acknowledge that our Creator has created each one of us unique. We are called through our uniqueness and differences to interact with one another and to follow the parting commandment of Jesus that the Gospel of John recorded:
”I give you a new commandment that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” (John 13:34-35).
It is not easy to love those who reject you. It is a challenge to love 75 million Anglicans whose leaders formed the Global South and whose reason for existence is to proclaim that homosexuality if a sin.
It is a further challenge to love Kong Hee of City Harvest Church for posted this Daily Devotion especially for his 32,0000 members. It is published last week on April 26, 2010.
“ l Corinthians 5:6 Explicitly referring to sexually immoral Christian, Paul says, “But now I have written t you not to keep company with anyone named a brother, who is sexually immoral…not even to eat with such a person”(5:11). Again referring to Christians who live unrighteous lives: “Do you know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, no adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites…will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you…” (6:9-11). If a Christian is living in sexual immorality, and you offer him your fellowship, not only do you profane God’s Word, you are excusing him from the responsibility to repent and forsake his sin.
This is the challenge to our church today. FCC as a unique inclusive Christian Church has an important mission to fulfill in a divided and conflicted world and demonstrate inclusivity. In our present context we are called to embrace the world and find out where God is already working in and then together to participate in that divine continuing work of making all things new.
God’s inclusive nature is reflected in creation according to our Psalm and according to Peter in dining with Cornelius. How can we in FCC reflect this inclusive God.
Affirm diversity in all dimensions
Accept inclusivity in all situations
Acknowledge creativity of God in all conditions
And reflect our inclusive God.
Acts 11:1-18, Psalm 148, Revelation 21:1-6, John 13:31-35
Free Community Church
May 2, 2010
I forgot to put in my preaching dates in my calendar and was prompted by Su Lin’s posting on Wednesday followed by an SMS the next day. My hope of a relaxing week evaporated. As it turned out, the Lectionary readings are fixed and the roster of regular preachers follow an order and the theme for this Sunday happen to be The Inclusive God, an important concept.
The passage in Acts finds Peter the “Pope” of the emerging church in Jerusalem after the death of Jesus dreaming about food on the rooftop in Joppa. The Psalmist sings about how inclusive God the Creator is in the entire creation. Revelation reveals the new thing that the Divine Creator is doing. And the Gospel John commands us to engage in a relationship of love for one another.
The critical charge leveled at Peter by exclusive Pharisees was “Why did you go to uncircumcised men and eat with them?” Behind this question is that in traditional Jewish law circumcised Jews do not eat with uncircumcised Gentiles. There is a gulf or a chasm between the two communities. Jews do not sit around the dinner table or floor with the Gentiles. Jews exclude Gentiles.
Table fellowship is an important act in the ministry of Jesus as we recall. When Jesus encountered the tax collector up in the tree He stopped and called up to him, “Zacchaeus, come down quickly, for today I must stay at your house” (Lk 19:5). The response of the crowd is telling. “He has gone to stay at the house of a sinner” (Lk 19:).
In this feature of table-fellowship Jesus shared with the marginalized, oppressed, rejected, despised and stigmatised. The Pharisees questioned Jesus’ behavior by asking his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?” (Mt 9:11; see also Mk 2:16; Lk 5:30). They further made the accusation against him. “This man welcomes sinners and eats with them” (Lk 15:2). Jesus was even maligned by some of being “a glutton and a drunkard” (Mt 11:19).
It is our custom that we eat together as family members for bonding and with others to establish friendships, strengthen relationships and develop trust. But increasingly we are not spending enough time for table fellowship these days and eat and run at best. Many kitchens in our homes are closed and we depend upon kopitiam kitchens in the community. As a result we dine alone and exclude others.
The German theologian Walter Kasper points out,
In the east, even today, to share a meal with someone is a guarantee of peace, trust, brotherhood and forgiveness; the shared table is a shared life. In Judaism fellowship at table had the special meaning of fellowship in the sight of God. Each person at the table ate a piece of broken bread and thus received a share in the blessing spoken by the master of the house over the whole loaf. Finally, every meal is a sign of the coming eschatological meal and the eschatological fellowship with God.”
The American theologian Albert Nolan saw “the impact these meals must have had upon the poor and the sinners. By accepting them as friends and equals Jesus had taken away their shame, humiliation and guilt. By showing them that they mattered to him as people he gave them a sense of dignity and released them from their old captivity. The physical contact which he must have had with them at table (Jn 13:25) and which he obviously never dreamed of disallowing (Lk 7:38-39) must have made them feel clean and acceptable. Moreover because Jesus was looked upon as a man of God and a prophet, they would have interpreted his gesture of friendship as God’s approval of them.”
Whenever the Church gathers at the Lord’s Table, the Eucharistic table, sinners, the broken, the marginalized are reconciled to God and to the human family. It is a table of inclusion and none is excluded.
It was not just a simple meal that Peter had with Cornelius with his relatives and close friends in cosmopolitan Caesarear. Luke had given us a fuller account of this event in Chapter 10. Cornelius was a Roman Centurion, a commanding officer, a Gentile but a devout man who fears God. He sent emissaries to Joppa to look for Peter and invited him to come to his house. Meanwhile Peter had his vision in Joppa where he saw “something like a sheet coming down, being lowered to the ground by its four corners. In it were all kinds of four-footed creatures and reptiles and birds of the air” (Acts 10:11-14) for him to eat. Peter hesitated for tradition regarded them as unclean and profane. But he was convinced by God who said “What God has made clean, you must not call profane.”
With that perception Peter leapt over the wall that separated the Jews from the Gentiles, crossed the line between the sacred and the profane and broke down the barriers between clean and unclean. He then proclaimed to the family of Cornelius and said: “I truly understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him.” After he baptized all of them they praised God by saying: “Then God has given even to the Gentiles the repentance that leads to life.” (Lk 11:18).
In this account in Acts, the Divine Creator regards all living things as sacred and clean. In Psalm 148 the Psalmist praises the Creator for sun and moon, heaven and waters, fire and hail, snow and frost, stormy winds, mountain and hills, fruit trees and cedars as sacred objects. Like Luke wild animals and cattle, creeping things and flying things are clean creatures. The Psalmist also included kings, princes and rulers of the earth and all peoples, young men and women alike and old and young together as persons of sacred worth. This is what Revelation teaches us about the Creator making all things new. This is the grand vision before us.
Jamie was on target when she preached last Sunday about our concept of God and how we shape our lives according how we view God to be. Both of us have our tertiary education in biology and I went on to study theology. We have been influenced by the scientific method and trained to analyze and find out the cause and effects of any event. We keep an open mind. When she visited me last week for lunch together I shared with her the reading of new theological book published in 2006 with the title “Theology Matters”
The author raised the issue of different images of God in today’s complex and challenging world. He wrote that “Christian tradition is saturated with personal images of the Divine: father, son, advocate, teacher, rabbi, shepherd, mother, lover, friend. Jamie preached that too and added other interesting images including that of driver, master chef and even GPS to navigate our travel on this earth.
The leading feminist theologian in our time, Sallie MacFaque is critical of the dominant traditional patriarchal and monarchic God images. Whenever I hear only of Father God even my masculine ego is troubled. Whenever I hear only of Lord God and King I feel uneasy. We leave out women, half of humankind, who hold up the earth. These images convey domination and hierarchies in relationships. That is why the Jews were so critical of Peter dining with the Gentile, Cornelius, one of another tribe, race and ethnicity.
They have constructed the image of God as the one who played favorites and regard themselves as Chosen People. Their God is the King of the Hill and subjugated all other tribes and nations in warfare and killing the innocent women and children of their enemies in battle. All these is chronicled and glorified in the pages of the Old Testament. Yahweh is the victorious warrior who rules over all and is the Judge and the Lawgiver. We are pre-occupied with sin and salvation. Jews have nothing to do with the non-Jews or Gentiles for God is partial only to Jews. They and they alone are God’s people and all others are even referred to as “no-people.”
The Jews enacted the purity laws and ceremonial rituals to exclude others in their select and elite community. Leviticus chapters 11–26 listed in detail clean and unclean foods, rituals after childbirth or a menstrual cycle, regulations for skin infections and contaminated clothing or furniture, prohibitions against contact with a human corpse or dead animal, agricultural guidelines about planting seeds and mating animals, and decrees about lawful sexual relationships, keeping the Sabbath, and forsaking idols These legal and religious codes encompassed every aspect of being human—birth, death, sex, gender, health, economics, jurisprudence, social relations, hygiene, marriage, behavior, and certainly ethnicity, for Gentiles were automatically considered impure.
It may come as a surprise to many to learn that what we view early Christianity or traditional theology a progressive force at that time. Judaism was the conservative force. Early Christianity was a force then that is the cutting edge and the radical religious movement of the day. They were the ones who explored the radical and explosive new thing of including the Gentiles in the early Church.
It was with this understanding of God that they acted. Jesus, Peter and Paul reacted in promoting inclusivity. I must quickly add that inclusivity does not imply uniformity.
We need to value the distinctiveness and uniqueness of God’s people.
“A wise teacher was speaking to a group of eager young students. He gave them the assignment to go out and find a small, unnoticed flower somewhere. He asked them to study the flower for a long time. “Get a magnifying glass and study the delicate veins in the leaves, and notice the nuances and shades of color. Turn the leaves slowly and observe their symmetry. And remember that this flower might have gone unnoticed and unappreciated if you had not found and admired it.” After the class returned, the teacher observed, “People are like that. Each one is different, carefully crafted, uniquely endowed. But you have to spend time with them to know this. So many people go unnoticed and unappreciated because no one has ever taken time with them and admired their uniqueness.” The book that I mentioned earlier has for its front cover the details of a green leaf.
It is time for us to more seriously affirm diversity and recognize differences in the human situation. We are to embrace the principle of inclusivity in spite of our differences and respect them. We are to acknowledge that our Creator has created each one of us unique. We are called through our uniqueness and differences to interact with one another and to follow the parting commandment of Jesus that the Gospel of John recorded:
”I give you a new commandment that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” (John 13:34-35).
It is not easy to love those who reject you. It is a challenge to love 75 million Anglicans whose leaders formed the Global South and whose reason for existence is to proclaim that homosexuality if a sin.
It is a further challenge to love Kong Hee of City Harvest Church for posted this Daily Devotion especially for his 32,0000 members. It is published last week on April 26, 2010.
“ l Corinthians 5:6 Explicitly referring to sexually immoral Christian, Paul says, “But now I have written t you not to keep company with anyone named a brother, who is sexually immoral…not even to eat with such a person”(5:11). Again referring to Christians who live unrighteous lives: “Do you know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, no adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites…will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you…” (6:9-11). If a Christian is living in sexual immorality, and you offer him your fellowship, not only do you profane God’s Word, you are excusing him from the responsibility to repent and forsake his sin.
This is the challenge to our church today. FCC as a unique inclusive Christian Church has an important mission to fulfill in a divided and conflicted world and demonstrate inclusivity. In our present context we are called to embrace the world and find out where God is already working in and then together to participate in that divine continuing work of making all things new.
God’s inclusive nature is reflected in creation according to our Psalm and according to Peter in dining with Cornelius. How can we in FCC reflect this inclusive God.
Affirm diversity in all dimensions
Accept inclusivity in all situations
Acknowledge creativity of God in all conditions
And reflect our inclusive God.
Comprehensive sexual Education
(Playing safe with traditional conservative sexuality education is no solution to wholesome and safe sex. In succumbing to conservative forces we are exposing youths to sexual problems. Are we sacrificing our youths when we ignore progressive and comprehensive sexuality education?
The prominence given by Straits Times to this letter in its printed edition is a sign of hope - YKH)
ST Forum
Home > ST Forum > Story
May 3, 2010
SEXUALITY EDUCATION
Will it arrest the slide?
I REFER to last Thursday's report, 'Ministry picks groups to teach sexuality education'. While thanking the Ministry of Education (MOE) for selecting and auditing sexuality education in schools, I would like to raise some questions with the intention of improving the quality of such education.
In present society, we cannot expect much that effective sexuality education will come from parents. So this has to come from the school system. Meanwhile, the Internet is filled with readily accessible sites which provide bad rather than good information about sex.
Before approving the applications of six external vendors of sexuality education, MOE checked their track records and ensured that the sensitivities of our multi-religious and interracial society were taken into consideration. But the important factor is the effectiveness of sexuality education.
The chosen external vendors use traditional values and methods in their sexuality education programmes. But statistical reports in recent years indicate a rising trend of sexual activity among youth, teenage pregnancies, abortions and incidence of sexually transmitted diseases. By reverting to traditional approaches, we will not arrest this alarming trend.
Innovative and comprehensive sexuality education programmes have been abandoned because of conservative pressures. The question is whether youth are helped by traditional sexuality education programmes.
Are we dealing with sexuality education comprehensively? Are there programmes in other places with positive results that can benefit our youth?
And are we willing to take some risks to improve the quality and efficacy of sexuality education?
(Playing safe with traditional conservative sexuality education is no solution to wholesome and safe sex. In succumbing to conservative forces we are exposing youths to sexual problems. Are we sacrificing our youths when we ignore progressive and comprehensive sexuality education?
The prominence given by Straits Times to this letter in its printed edition is a sign of hope - YKH)
ST Forum
Home > ST Forum > Story
May 3, 2010
SEXUALITY EDUCATION
Will it arrest the slide?
I REFER to last Thursday's report, 'Ministry picks groups to teach sexuality education'. While thanking the Ministry of Education (MOE) for selecting and auditing sexuality education in schools, I would like to raise some questions with the intention of improving the quality of such education.
In present society, we cannot expect much that effective sexuality education will come from parents. So this has to come from the school system. Meanwhile, the Internet is filled with readily accessible sites which provide bad rather than good information about sex.
Before approving the applications of six external vendors of sexuality education, MOE checked their track records and ensured that the sensitivities of our multi-religious and interracial society were taken into consideration. But the important factor is the effectiveness of sexuality education.
The chosen external vendors use traditional values and methods in their sexuality education programmes. But statistical reports in recent years indicate a rising trend of sexual activity among youth, teenage pregnancies, abortions and incidence of sexually transmitted diseases. By reverting to traditional approaches, we will not arrest this alarming trend.
Innovative and comprehensive sexuality education programmes have been abandoned because of conservative pressures. The question is whether youth are helped by traditional sexuality education programmes.
Are we dealing with sexuality education comprehensively? Are there programmes in other places with positive results that can benefit our youth?
And are we willing to take some risks to improve the quality and efficacy of sexuality education?
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