Does it matter what you believe?

All manner of atrocities have been committed in the name of religion. Their perpetrators earnestly believed they were acting on God's behalf. Like Paul. And there's the crunch. We are taught that we need to hear the voice of God and obey it. But of this "hearing"... some say like "I felt God was telling me to..." and I wonder are they really hearing God's voice? What if one party earnestly believes God is saying X and another party Y and X and Y are major issues and mutually exclusive? Is this how splits and new denominations happen in the church?  There are rather generous estimates of up to 43,000 denominations within perhaps 40 main variations. Which gives the new convert plenty of choice. So does it matter what you believe?

If the deep outer veneers of difference are scraped off, what core value, common vision is there that defines a true Christian? Like the simplicity of Peter's "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house".

I was pleasantly surprised to find this discussion of what it means to be a Christian on the BBC site - surprised because my son-in-law eschews the BBC considering it to be very biased. The site says "It's about a friendship - a friendship with Jesus Christ." But what does it mean to have a friendship with someone that cannot be sensed in the usual way? I am reminded of Chocky who, in the story, is thought to be a childhood invention but turns out to be real. And here is my conundrum: those seemingly more stable Christians with whom I fellowship will claim that they do have a friendship with Jesus, that they hear Him speaking to them, feel His presence, and so on. I've thought I did but now I am not so sure. Don't get me wrong - I love the concept, so aptly portrayed in the Narnia books, like But no one except Lucy knew that as it circled the mast it had whispered to her, "Courage, dear heart," and the voice, she felt sure, was Aslan's, and with the voice a delicious smell breathed in her face and I long for such an experience in my own life, a longing that is as close to "faith" as I can muster. Or maybe, horrors, my spirit has somehow grown cold like the dwarfs within the stable in The Last Battle.

On the other hand I've seen some pretty amazing things that I can put down to the hand of God. That I got married at all, let alone to an amazing woman and with resulting four amazing children. Even my closest friends at the time agreed it was an unlikely thing to happen. And more recently, after waiting in hope for so many years, J and S's adoption of a Thai child happening so fast and at such a time that one could not help comparing it with Joseph's sudden rise to second only to Pharoah. Or when I open my eyes and see creation in all its detail.

But I, being human, need constant reassurance of things unseen. Working on some scaffolding the other day I cantilevered a plank to help me reach, making the other end fast by a G-clamp to the scaffolding tower. It looked good. My knowledge of levers confirmed my observation. And yet still I very cautiously committed my weight to the projecting end of the plank. I needed more assurance than physics theory offered. And I need more assurance than Christian doctrine offers.

A recent visitor alluded to numerical patterns or "gematria" found in the scriptures, for example as purported by Vernon Jenkins with his 37 x 73 argument. This is all very fascinating but at the same time I am cautious. Many of the patterns only work in base 10 as this site observes, but then one might argue that the decimal system is God given because He gave our hands and feet 10 digits. And does Vernon also believe that the Earth is flat or is at least the centre of the universe?

Another guy came up with the Bible Wheel but has more recently debunked his own theory and now no longer calls himself a Christian. I followed this story because it is unusual for a theorist to publically recant. Without reading every word it seems that he fell into that trap of emphasising data that supported his theory whilst disregarding the rest. Commonly known as a biased sample. I think Christians are wonderfully good at this - wonderfully because it takes some guts, some perseverance and commitment, to persistently believe one thing when so much evidence points another way.

And thus Paul argues in the book of Romans: for what can be known about God is plain to them [unbelievers], because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools. Doubtless Richard Dawkins would not agree. If I had to choose between him and Paul I'd choose the latter any day, but still I find Paul's argument curiously hollow. Conversely the anthropic principle says the world is as it is (all those physical constants having just the right value to sustain life as we know it and all that) because here we are to prove it, and this also seems to me a hollow argument lacking substance.

In all these musings I find myself coming back to the man Jesus and his claims of deity as recorded in the Gospels. But that was a long time ago and, like Trumpkin the dwarf, I find myself thinking "Do you believe all those old stories?" and "But who believes in Aslan nowadays?".  In this story Trumpkin's unbelief mercifully ends with "Son of Earth, shall we be friends?". Maybe that was just  the author's fancy.

I crave such mercy.

Three feasts and Ungit

This post is sort of a continuation of an earlier one.

Three Castles

A few miles from us there is a castle called Three Castles. The name is thought to be because this is the last remaining one of three: a second is visible on a historic map, the third is a mystery.

Three Lakes

A few more miles and in the Wicklow Mountains is Three Lakes which, we are told, is a lake, although in fact there is a second smaller lake close by. But not three.

Denomination: a religious group that has slightly different beliefs from other groups that share the same religion. On that basis the church I go to, and a few others worldwide that are loosely connected, constitute a denomination. Except that they claim they are not denominational. The same argument might apply to the church my parents took me to as a child. And both claim to be the bees knees when it comes to doctrine - although at least one must be wrong.

What is 'different' about the church I go to is that it is "third feast" (as opposed to "third wave") as in the three feast periods mentioned in the Old Testament which loosely equate to the initial salvation experience (Passover), baptism in the Spirit (Pentecost) and going on to perfection (Tabernacles). This is of course a very simplistic summary. Perfection is not a new idea - John Wesley and all Methodists who adhere to his doctrine advocate it. Exactly what is meant by perfection is another thing. Some have claimed that, on reaching "perfection" they would in this life live forever, although I have not yet noticed anyone doing this. And anyway there is something decidedly fishy about claiming oneself is perfect.

It's not that I disagree with the third feast idea. For one thing it sets a vision of holiness (perfection) to which one can at least aspire even if without divine help it is humanly impossible. But I've heard this preaching for around 40 years and do not see a corresponding amount of progress. Not in my life anyway. Whilst a believer can and doubtless should experience the first two, the third remains obstinately in the future. And yet I want to go on, to become better, I want it to have been true that I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith.

Long ago, when we were living in London, I remember there was teaching in our group on likening our Christian journey to the children of Israel travelling from Egypt (code-name for the world system) to the promised land. This teaching continued over many weeks and then one day the preacher reckoned we were actually entering the promised land. But nothing that I noticed had changed, and it left me anticlimactic, like, what next? It also taught me not to trust preachers.

Presently the little door on my right opened and a woman, a peasant, came in... She looked as if she had cried all night, and in her hands she held a live pigeon. One of the lesser priests came forward at once, took the tiny offering from her, slit it open with his stone knife, splashed the little shower of blood over Ungit... The peasant woman sank down on her face at Ungit's feet. She lay there a very long time, so shaking that anyone could tell how bitterly she wept. But the weeping ceased. She rose up on her knees and put back her hair from her face and took a long breath... 

"Has Ungit comforted you, child?" I asked. 

"Oh yes, Queen," said the woman, her face almost brightening, "Oh yes. Ungit has given me great comfort. There's no goddess like Ungit." 

"Do you always pray to that Ungit," said I (nodding toward the shapeless stone), "and not to that?" Here I nodded towards our new image, standing tall and straight in her robes and (whatever the Fox might say of it) the loveliest thing our land has ever seen. 

"Oh, always this, Queen," said she. "That other, the Greek Ungit, she wouldn't understand my speech. She's only for nobles and learned men. There's no comfort in her." 

Lewis's Till we have Faces is his most pertinent fiction. If you, his reader, do not immediately identify with Orual's introversion then you're made of sterner stuff than I am. As usual in his fiction, Lewis wisely leaves it to the reader to elaborate. We cannot tell if the comfort this peasant woman gained was real or just a product of her sub-conscience but, either way, the new fangled, painted, Greek image of Ungit didn't do the trick. And maybe new fangled teaching isn't working for me apart from some small admiration for its colourful paintwork. I'll be denounced heretical for this admission no doubt. Perhaps my problem is unbelief, of which the Bible has many negative things to say. But I have tried to believe - help thou my unbelief.

Save me, O God! For the waters have come up to my neck. I sink in deep mire, where there is no foothold; I have come into deep waters, and the flood sweeps over me. I am weary with my crying out; my throat is parched. My eyes grow dim with waiting for my God.

Spiritualising scripture and UFO's

Paul writing to the Corinthians:

For I do not want you to be unaware, brothers, that our fathers were all under the cloud, and all passed through the sea, and all were baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea, and all ate the same spiritual food, and all drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank from the spiritual Rock that followed them, and the Rock was Christ. Nevertheless, with most of them God was not pleased, for they were overthrown in the wilderness. Now these things took place as examples for us, that we might not desire evil as they did. Do not be idolaters as some of them were; as it is written, "The people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play." We must not indulge in sexual immorality as some of them did, and twenty-three thousand fell in a single day. We must not put Christ to the test, as some of them did and were destroyed by serpents, nor grumble, as some of them did and were destroyed by the Destroyer. Now these things happened to them as an example [or model or pattern], but they were written down for our instruction, on whom the end of the ages has come.

Clearly Paul reads more into the Old Testament text than the history it records. In saying "the Rock was Christ" he has what is called "spirtualised" the text. Which is all very well because we believe in a God outside time who has orchestrated the Whole Deal so such patterns in history or, indeed, in nature as in "For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse" are to be expected. Which is all very well... up to a point...

It's just that, if you try hard enough, you can read just about anything into a given text. Especially if you are prepared to misuse Greek or Hebrew lexicons, take passages out of context, give questionable significance to numbers or their various factors and other dubious mathematical tricks or read the description of a bloody battle without any thought for the fate of the combatants. The process is nicely caricatured in this site in which a girl Marvel was on her exercise bike praying and listening to inspirational music. At exactly seven p.m.—seven being the number of perfection—God revealed to her, by the spirit, that Jerusalem is Schenectady, New York.

Anyway I think "spiritualise" is a misnomer for this eeking out hidden meaning. I'm suspicious when certain passages are spiritualised whilst others are taken at face value, the choice seeming to me to be somewhat random. I'm even more suspicious when a passage is spiritualised to the dismissing of its face value.

Which brings me onto UFO's. And is the apostrophe correct here? Most people think alien UFO reports are bogus but some folk seriously regard them as fact. The pattern is not so different from things of the "spirit", and anyway does this word describe another plane of existence or just the innermost workings of the human ego? You'd have thought that humans would have things like this sussed by now, but this is not the case. Try Googling "define spirit"!

The point I am making (trying to) is that, instead of becoming more and more sure about what I believe is true as one would expect of a maturing adult, I find myself instead becoming less sure. Many of the the things I was taught as a child and used to accept without hardly a question I now find myself questioning. Don't get me wrong: I want to believe in a God who only wants my good and I daily seek evidence of this. And, true, I have been blessed. To have been born into a society that values freedom of life, born to loving parents, enjoyed an education freely given to me, for my wife and children, for the loving community I am part of...

We humans, funky creatures, each need a reason to live. Otherwise we wilt. Some find their reason in their hobbies - I know someone who makes custom vehicles, another who traipses all over Ireland on hikes, another who spends every spare moment in running or cycling competitions. Others have their belief systems of which some are wackier than others.

The preacher has it fairly well sussed, though not always helpfully, in judging all is vanity. But he does add, somewhat more helpfully: Enjoy life with the wife whom you love and there is nothing better for them than to be joyful and to do good as long as they live; also that everyone should eat and drink and take pleasure in all his toil--this is God's gift to man.

And finally, just when you thought, hakuna matata style, that was all there was to life, he adds: Of making many books there is no end, and much study is a weariness of the flesh. The end of the matter... fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. For God will bring every deed into judgement, with every secret thing, whether good or evil.