Is the family history?

I recently read an article that made me quite sad about the explicit untruths and inaccuracies that are allowed to be published in reputable publications. It was an opinion piece in the Sydney Morning Herald written by Guardian columnist George Monbiot, in which he claimed that those who advocate heterosexual marriage have fabricated a history of the family as a heterosexual institution.

Rather than go on for ages about all the things that bothered me about the article, I’ll just focus on one, the following paragraph:

The unbiblical and ahistorical nature of the modern Christian cult of the nuclear family is a marvel to behold. Its promoters are followers of a man born out of wedlock and allegedly sired by someone other than his mother's partner. Jesus insisted that ''if any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters … he cannot be my disciple''. He issued no such injunction against homosexuality: the threat he perceived was heterosexual and familial love, which competed with the love of God.

There are some truths in this passage that mask the untruths and inaccuracies of his interpretation of the Bible. I think it’s true that the modern 'nuclear family’ (mother, father and biological children living together) is not itself a Biblically mandated institution. Rather, it is a cultural manifestation of the Biblical principles of lifelong monogamy (Gen 2:23-24, Ex 19:14, Mt 5:31-32), multiplication (Gen 1:26-28), and passing on the knowledge of God and His promises and commands to the next generation (Gen 12:1-3, 17:7, Deut 6:1-9). We must be careful to separate out what is merely cultural from what is necessarily Christian. Sometimes they work together, but often they do not. In the case of the nuclear family, it’s a cultural phenomenon that seems compatible with the Biblical principles. Living in community with other families or generations of an extended family could also work, and in fact the descriptions of the early church in Acts suggest this kind of arrangement (e.g. Acts 2:42-47).

The Bible passage Monbiot refers to here is Luke 14:25-26. In the passage immediately before this (Luke 14:15-24), Jesus had been talking to people at a dinner party at the home of the ruler of the Pharisees, telling a parable of a rich man who gave a great banquet and invited all his friends but when the time for the banquet came, they all sent their apologies because they had work to do, or economic concerns to act on, or family to attend to. So the man had to find other guests among the poor and homeless - those whom respectable people wouldn’t normally invite to a banquet - to fill the house for the banquet. There should be nothing to distract them, and even if there was, they would recognise the value of the offer and accept it.

In the passage in question (Luke 14:25-26), the scene changes to Jesus speaking to the enormous crowds that were accompanying him. But I think Luke wants us to make the connection with the previous passage, as the point is the same. Jesus extends an invitation to everyone, including those who have all kinds of potential distractions, and we must count the cost of accepting his generous and valuable offer.

As Jesus says elsewhere (Mt 6:24), you cannot serve two masters - we either serve Jesus as King, or our family, or our job, or whatever. The same underlying principle was inherent in the command given to God’s people at the revelation of his commandments at Mount Sinai (Deut 6:4-5) - "you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength". We are to be undivided. But we are also to love our neighbours (including our family as well as complete strangers) as ourselves, and so Jesus’ challenge to ‘hate’ our own parents and siblings does not absolve us of family responsibility. Our family responsibility rather becomes part of the way we love and serve God and obey his commands.

While it’s true that Jesus did not issue any direct injunction against homosexuality, it’s grossly misleading to say that Jesus perceived 'heterosexual love’ as a ‘threat’. In the passage Monbiot quotes, Jesus was merely warning his would-be disciples that following him would mean they could not let their family get in the way of their allegiance to Jesus and obedience to God. On the contrary, Jesus explicitly condoned faithful heterosexual marriage, as on several occasions he spoke strongly against adultery and sexual immorality. He had hard words to say to the Samaritan woman he met at a well (John 4:1-30), who had been married five times and was now sleeping with someone other than her husband. To the woman caught in adultery in John 8, Jesus said ‘from now on sin no more’. He wanted (and still wants) people to live God’s way, the way they were created for, walking in the light rather than in darkness (John 8:12).

Christmas legends

I haven't been officially 'working' since semester finished towards the end of October, and I've found that the relative loss of structure in the week has made me much less efficient. The regularity of my blog posts has certainly suffered! But here I am, 3 days before Christmas, determined to make at least one more post before the year is out (actually I have a few more ideas up my sleeve so I might just get another one out before the end of the year!).

I've been doing a lot of carol-singing in the lead-up to Christmas this year, which is rather fun. Last night I sang in the foyer of a local RSL club with the choir I've been singing with for years. After we sang the song 'Little Donkey', I heard one of the tenors objecting that there was no mention of a donkey in Luke's gospel (which is true) but "they were all legends anyway so it doesn't matter". My hackles rose, and at that point I was struck by the combination of songs that we hear around us at Christmas, in every shopping centre and public place. There is such a mingling of truth and fiction that it's no wonder people are confused between legend and history.

From the songs we sang last night, 'Frosty the Snowman', Santa Claus' (at least the concept originating from a Coca Cola campaign of the 30s), 'Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer' - all these are fictitious characters. And yet there are attempts in the lyrics of the songs to lend historical validity to them. 'Rudolph' is sung about in past tense as if the story is being told by an eyewitness: 'Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer had a very shiny nose, and if you ever saw it, you would even say it glows. All of the other reindeer used to laugh and call him names...'. In 'Frosty the Snowman', an attempt is made to downplay they mythical sense of the story, and to invoke children as the true 'knowers': 'Frosty the snowman was a fairytale, they say. He was made of snow, but the children know how he came to life one day'. In 'Santa Claus is Coming to Town'.

Interestingly, all these songs were written in the twentieth century driven by a commercial imperative. The Wikipedia entry for Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer has this telling sentence: 'Although the story and song are not public domain, Rudolph has become a figure of Christmas folklore.' The story is 'owned' by a company, 'The Rudolph Company'! 'Frosty the Snowman' was written in 1950 and recorded by the same person who released the first recording of 'Rudolph', who, according to Wikipedia, was "in search of another seasonal hit". Frosty even has a MySpace page, which lists friends such as 'Santa' and 'SNOW', 'where children of all ages from all over the world can write to their favorite snowman' (Wikipedia)! 'Santa Claus is coming to town', after being released in November 1934, "became an instant hit with orders for 100,000 copies of sheet music the next day and more than 400,000 copies sold by Christmas".

Whatever the motivation, these and other Christmas songs (like this incredibly cheesy one I heard a while ago - Here Comes Suzy Snowflake!) have certainly captured the imagination of children in many English-speaking countries. But I worry that as the public imagination is engaged by these clearly fictional songs, the Christmas songs, both old and new, that relate the true story of Jesus (e.g. Hark the Herald Angels Sing, The First Nowell, Silent Night, Holy Lamb of God) are increasingly lumped in with the fictional 'Christmas folklore'.

There may be few historical records beyond the gospel of Luke that record and give evidence of the circumstances of Jesus' birth in Bethlehem. But there are plenty of historical records to substantiate the gospel claims of Jesus' earthly works, his death, and his resurrection (see e.g. historical surveys in Morison's 'Who Moved the Stone?', Dickson's 'The Christ Files'). And by these and the Spirit of God in me, I am convinced that Jesus is the Son of God. I am therefore inclined to believe that what Luke's gospel says about Jesus' birth is more than just legend. A God who can raise someone from the dead can surely make a virgin birth happen. And A God who can do all that and who gave His Son as a gift to all people, none of whom had been 'good', is much more worthy of my attention than a snowman who dissolves when the temperature goes up, a reindeer with a glowing red nose, or an old chubby guy with a beard who gives gifts once a year to children who have been good.

Real Dialogue #2: A Review

As I wrote last week, I had the privilege of moderating a public debate at the University of New South Wales between Dr James White and Abdullah Kunde on the question of ‘Can God become a man?’. It was indeed a privilege to be part of a dialogue conducted in such a thoughtful and civilised manner on one of the central issues over which Christians and Muslims are not able to agree. The debate should be available on YouTube in the near future (I’ll post a link here).

Both speakers acknowledged the value of the debate and treated each other with great respect, with Kunde acknowledging White’s seniority in both age and academic status, and White acknowledging Kunde’s scholarship in both Hebrew and (Old Testament) Biblical studies and Medicine (of which he is still a student). Both came across as being conversant with the sacred texts of the other faith. Neither speaker seemed to approach the debate as merely an opportunity to spend time in the spotlight or provide entertainment for the audience (although it was certainly entertaining at points); rather, they treated it very seriously as an opportunity to discuss at length and bring into the open the central issues that make the incarnation of God of utmost importance to Christians and an absolute blasphemy to Muslims.

The format of the debate was:

• 20 minute opening statement from each speaker
• 15 minute rebuttals
• 10-15 minute break
• 12 minute cross-examination (2 sessions each)
• 12 minute closing statement from each speaker

It was decided that it would be more valuable to let the speakers use the whole time to say what they wanted to say and clarify each other’s views rather than allow time for audience questions. That made my job as a moderator much easier! A text record of the debate has been published by someone who was there and took notes on the proceedings, which gives you a general idea of what kinds of ideas were tabled (until the video becomes available).

As in many debates of this nature, where each speaker prepares an opening statement in advance, this debate began with the speakers talking across each other to a certain extent. White offered his formulation of the central question: ‘Does God as creator have the power, ability, capacity to join a human nature to Himself if he pleases to do so? Upon what basis can anyone say God could not do this?’ but Kunde, as the second speaker, had prepared a statement with not one central question but a large number of questions, such as ‘if Jesus has both human nature and divine nature in one being, which part of him died – the human or the divine nature - since Christians believe God cannot die?’.

There were two parts of the opening section of the debate that I found really helpful. The first was White’s argument that the doctrine of incarnation doesn’t involve ‘a fundamental change in divine essence but a fundamental change in divine experience’. That is, from a Christian point of view, the incarnation of God does not change the essence of God, only the way that God interacts with the created world. The other was Kunde’s presentation of the Islamic beliefs about the attributes of God. This helped me understand why incarnation is such a difficult concept for Muslims to accept, namely, that because one of the necessary attributes of God is that he is dissimilar to created things, he could not become a man without ceasing to be God. Obviously these two points are related, and it was this issue of whether incarnation and the essential attributes of God that became the recurring theme throughout the night.

A few other key issues that I noticed over the course of the night were:

• The nature of the Trinity, which (as I understand it) is unique to Christian theology and involves a complementary relationship between the three persons of the Godhead rather than all three acting in exactly the same way all the time. The relationship of love between the three persons is also important for explaining the obedience of the Son to the Father and the desire of the Father to glorify the Son.
• What it would mean for a human to be ‘perfect’ – complete sinlessness or complete lack of limitations (mortality, temporality, intellect, power, etc). My impression was that Kunde was arguing that sinlessness alone does not make Jesus ‘perfect’ as Christians claim, since all the Muslim messengers are considered ‘sinless’ (because God protected them from sin) but not perfect. Perfection in his view seemed to be not just sinlessness but the state of being unlimited by temporality, mortality, knowledge, bodily frailty, etc. And these are all attributes of God…
• The nature of certainty in the two faiths. Kunde argued that the Muslim faith is built on certainty, promising believers paradise, whereas the Christian faith is ‘at best’ a sandy surface. But it was never made clear what the certainty of that promise of paradise is based on, or how believers can be certain they will see paradise. Christians are also given a promise – one of eternal relationship with God – and for me that promise is a certainty for a number of reasons. Firstly, it was promised very early on in the Bible (Genesis) and reiterated throughout the Old Testament. Secondly, Jesus fulfilled hundreds of prophecies from the OT about the one God was going to send to bring about the ultimate fulfilment of his promises. Thirdly, Jesus made it clear that the only way people could have any relationship with God the Father was through him, the Son of God, not by any good works they did, which could never be enough. They had to believe that Jesus could be (and had to be) a mediator between them (a sinner) and the Father (a Holy God who cannot abide sin). Fourthly, God raised Jesus from the dead and exalted him to His right hand to rule over all of creation, which demonstrates to me the credibility of Jesus’ testimony and also validates Jesus’ promise to his followers that he was going to prepare a place for them in his Father’s house and would bring them there later.

Language: from the mouth of...

In the course of my search for blogs about language/linguistics and faith, I came across this very interesting post about whether the human language in which the Bible is written limits God’s ability to communicate with us. The discussion was based on Article IV of the Chicago Statement of Biblical Inerrancy – a statement of affirmations and denials prepared following an intensive 3-day conference of about 300 evangelical pastors. The Article in question reads as follows:

We affirm that God who made mankind in His image has used language as a means of revelation.

We deny that human language is so limited by our creatureliness that it is rendered inadequate as a vehicle for divine revelation. We further deny that the corruption of human culture and language through sin has thwarted God's work of inspiration.

There are two points I would like to make about this now, but I might return to it in a later post after I’ve thought and read some more.

Firstly, God ‘made mankind in His image’ (see Genesis 1:26) and I take it that, as part of his creation of humans, God created language also. God, who is a relational God, created us in his image to be relational creatures, and it seems to me that God has given us language so that we can relate to each other, but also so that we can relate to him.

I was recently reminded of the way humans reflect God’s image in terms of communication when I read Psalm 94. The psalmist cries out to God to bring justice and judge wrongdoers, who keep doing what they are doing, thinking that God can’t see them. In verses 8-11, the psalmist then goes to address these wrongdoers:

 ⁸ Understand, O dullest of the people!
Fools, when will you be wise?
⁹ He who planted the ear, does he not hear?
He who formed the eye, does he not see?
¹⁰He who disciplines the nations, does he not rebuke?
He who teaches man knowledge -
¹¹ the LORD - knows the thoughts of man,
that they are but a breath.

This reminded me that our ability to see, hear and reflect on the world in thought is a reflection of God’s ability to do all these things, since we are created in his image. The ability to hear (v.9) particularly struck me: what is God hearing (and, we assume, understanding) here but the cries and prayers of the people he has made? The characteristic of being communicative must also be a reflection of God’s communicative nature. Jesus’ testimony about God helps us see that God is communicative within the Trinity: there is communication between God the Father and God the Son (e.g. Matthew 11:27, John 14:10, 15:15; Matthew 26:39,42; John 14:6-7, 16), God the Son and God the Spirit (e.g. John 15:26), and God the Father and God the Spirit (e.g. John 14:16, Romans 8:26-27).

And so, because we have been created as relational, communicative beings, ‘God has used language as a means of revelation’. So all three members of the Trinity also communicate with people at different times (e.g. the Father in Genesis 1:28-29, Exodus 3:3-6; the Son in any of the gospels, also Acts 9:4-6; the Spirit in John 15:26, Acts 2:4).

God’s use of the human phenomenon of language to communicate with us reminds me of another beautiful way in which God used a human phenomenon to reveal himself - about 2000 years ago, in the form of a human, Jesus Christ. Because we are humans who use language, God uses language to speak to us through the Scriptures. Because we are humans who have physical, frail and mortal bodies, God sent his Son, Jesus, as a human, to point us back to God, and used his human mortality to demonstrate his love for the world. It was the ultimate communicative act.

"I've got a little list"

There’s been a bit of a controversy this week about the Sydney Symphony Orchestra’s ‘The Very Best of G&S’ show at the Opera House. One of the songs, the Lord High executioner’s ‘List Song’ from the Mikado, which seems designed to have its lyrics tailored to the contemporary events of the day, mentioned Hillsong Church in an allegedly derogatory way. The lyric deemed offensive was as follows:

“That Hillsong lot on television, all joyfully singing psalms, I wish they would desist, and their happy claps resist.”

Apparently, Hillsong’s lawyers wrote to the Sydney Symphony, asking to see the lyrics. I suppose the fact that the song is basically the executioner listing the people who should not be missed by his execution campaign, makes it a bit unkind. But they’re not the only ones to be targeted. A blog comment by the show’s conductor, Guy Noble, notes that “Julia Gillard, Tony Abbott, Clover Moore, Justin Bieber’s dermatologist, lovers of the music of Brahms, any aunty who has a moustache, anyone with a mobile phone, Westfield” were also included in the list of social irritants.

Having seen a full performance of the Mikado (by Opera Australia a few years ago), I can attest that it's a very funny song and the whole point of it is to poke fun at the joke-butts of the moment and draw the audience into an in-group of people who have the same attitudes about things relevant to their society. The Sydney Morning Herald (25^th June 2011) reported Maunder (who played Ko Ko, the executioner) as saying “If you are in the public arena, you are fair game... I'm very surprised anyone would have taken offence. It's affectionate and charming. It would be a mistake to say there was any malicious intent.”

But as always with these kind of 'what are they complaining about?' comments directed at Christians, I wonder whether the same joking treatment would ever be levelled at adherents of any other faith. Can you see the Australian Islamic community being written into the lyrics? I think not... The effect would be (as it is here) ‘We all think these people [insert name of individual or group] are a bit strange, but they sure provide us with something to laugh about together’. It’s great for creating an in-group of those who agree, but it also suggests that those who think differently are excluded.

While I have my criticisms of Hillsong, I think they have a right to draw attention to this public mocking disguised as musical culture. But it would have been a good opportunity to invite people to see what they’re all about, or to gently provoke discussion in the public arena about why it is that the Christian church is fair game for poking fun at in public while other faiths are off limits. I wouldn't have made it a legal issue, though. The Bible is full of references to the people of God being mocked by the world around them. It should be no surprise to Christians when they find themselves in the same situation. Jesus himself was mocked mercilessly even while he hung on the cross. The Gospels tells us that Jesus predicted that it would happen to him (e.g. Luke 18:32) and indeed it did, from various directions (e.g. Luke 22:63, Luke 23:11, Luke 23:36). He bore it with dignity, and rather than trying to take his mockers to court (he knew it was coming, after all), he mercifully offered to represent them, as he represents us all, in the highest court of God’s judgement.

An itinerant linguist

It's now week 5 of teaching and I have more or less got used to the routine of being at a different university teaching a different subject virtually every day. Sometimes I actually find myself teaching very similar lessons but for different subjects - not because I'm recycling the same tutorial for 11 different classes, but because it happens to be relevant!

Image © Images.com/Corbis

Thankfully, I am enjoying this period of being an itinerant teacher. In that sense, it's a bit like what Jesus was doing when he was bodily on earth - travelling around primarily to teach. Of course I can't claim divine powers of healing or exorcism (that would look interesting in my tutorials...), and Jesus' teaching priority was about the kingdom of God rather than grammar, academic writing, or semiotics (although he did talk about signs a lot...). But it reminds me that moving from place to place for work is ok - if it was good enough for Jesus, it's good enough for me! At least I have the same place to go home to each night.

There is a lot of temptation for me to be discontent in this role. Tenure is, of course, the holy grail of academia, and it would be nice to be 'secure' in a job that does not rely on students numbers and universities being in teaching session. Note I said 'nice', not 'essential'.

In my home group last week we worked through 1 Corinthians 4:1-13 together, and were reminded of the stark and often uncomfortable contrast between Jesus' leadership (and Paul's, following him) and the kind of leadership the world values. The world looks up to wealth, physical strength and attractiveness (or at least good grooming), nobility, worldly wisdom, reputation, stability, and distance from the 'dirty work' of manual labour. Jesus and his apostles were weak, held in disrepute, seemingly foolish, poorly dressed, homeless, and involved in manual labour.

I can see this period of unstable and almost mercenary work as an opportunity for humility and sacrificial service. It's not 'beneath me' to work as a casual tutor, especially if Jesus didn't consider it 'beneath him' to wash his disciples' feet. I can think of the exposure it gives me to students from a range of backgrounds whom I can love and encourage and point to Jesus, my Saviour and King, when the opportunities arise. And I can see it as an opportunity to be light and salt, encouraging colleagues who are walking the same uncertain path as casuals but who don't have a great heavenly King as their hope and strength.