Studies in Theology

The Pope's pronouncements rarely go unremarked. His latest on condom use by male prostitutes is a marvellously  obscure theological exercise in ambiguity, which has had everyone from the UN to Oprah hopping up and down wondering what he actually meant. 

In contrast, SPCK is promoting an Advent course from the pastor of a Baptist Church in Nevada City which is refreshingly simple. It begins with a full-frontal exegesis of Luke's account of the Annunciation, using 'virgin' in its most customary modern form. Ah. OK. I was reminded of my first days at a (remarkably liberal) theological college with its “professional approach”, distinguishing between “official theology” (the production of church institutions, like Rome), “ordinary theology” (the reflection of virtually all believers), and “professional-academic theology.” The purpose of academic theology is to mediate constructively and critically between the other two flavours. In order to do this, academic theology should distance itself from both church and academy; “systematic theology must necessarily be a bit of an outsider in both the church and the university if it is to contribute fruitfully to the quest for greater understanding of the Christian faith.” OK, That lets me in, then, because I’m nowhere near an understanding of whether the virgin birth was an historical and biological fact but I do think it has immense doctrinal value. I think  that the concept of Jesus as the “Son of God” does not depend on the doctrine of the virgin birth; on the contrary, the stories of a virgin birth depend wholly on the Christian community’s prior faith in Jesus as the “Son of God.” The Biblical narrative tends to suggest that we  put the cart before the horse. Students of theology, however, the ‘Queen of sciences’ are notorious for their arrogance and are sometimes thought by non-theologians to be subject to delusional states who are entirely able to put whatever spin is most appropriate or relevant to the audience on everything from Jonah’s whale (one theologian described it as ‘a pub’) to the role of angels.   If you’ve ever fancied  flirting with the Queen, the following should be enough to put you off. With thanks and apologies for shameless plagiarism to Ben Myers.

     1. As a theological student, your aim is to accumulate opinions – as many as you can, and as fast as possible. (Exceptional students may acquire all their opinions within the first few weeks; others require rather longer.) One of the best ways to collect opinions is to choose your theological group (“I shall be progressive,” or “I will be evangelical,” or “I am a Barthian”, even “I can spell “Schleiermacher”), then sign up to all the opinions usually associated with that social group. If at first you don’t feel much conviction for these new opinions, be patient: within months you will be a staunch advocate, and you’ll even be able to help new students acquire the same opinions.

2. At the earliest possible opportunity you should also form an opinion about your favourite theological discipline: that is, you should choose your specialisation. To communicate this choice to others, you should dismiss as trivial or irrelevant all other disciplines: the systematic theologian should teach him (or her) self to utter humorous , disparaging remarks about the worth of “practical” theology, while the New Testament student should learn to hold forth emphatically on the dangers of systematic theology; and so on.

3. As far as possible, you should try to avoid all non-theological interests or pursuits. All your time and energy should be invested in reading important books and discussing important ideas. (Novels, TV and video games in particular should be avoided, as they are notorious time-wasters; they furnish you with faster reflexes but no new opinions.)

4. Every successful theological student must master the proper vocabulary. All theological conversations should be peppered with these termini technici (e.g. “Only a demythologised Barthian ontology can subvert the différance of postmodern theory and re-construe the analogia entis in terms of temporal mediation”). The less comprehensible and more sibylline the sentence uttered, the better. There are some stock-in-trade terms that are de rigueur (e.g. perichoresis, imago Dei, Heilsgeschichte - I actually remember what this means -  even a load of Bullsgeschichte), but the really outstanding student should find creative ways to deploy a wide range of foreign polysyllabic words. Phrases of Latin, Greek or German derivation are particularly prized. (Those of Hebrew of Syriac extraction should be used more sparingly – they are usually greeted with some puzzlement, or with cries of “Gesundheit!”)

5. Now that you’re a theological student, you will discover that the world is filled with people who – incomprehensibly - don’t share your new opinions. Every conversation should thus be viewed as an opportunity to persuade others of their simple-mindedness and to convert them to a better understanding. If you’re feeling shy about this, you should start by practising on your family and closest friends. They won’t mind. Honestly. And it’s not always necessary to engage in a full-blown discussion; at times a single Latin term or a knowing smirk is all that’s required to demolish another person’s argument.

6. Were you raised in a conservative Christian family? If so, your theological education provides you with the perfect opportunity for rebellion. The benefits of theological rebellion should not be underestimated: rejecting all your parents’ religious opinions allows you both to assert your independence and to imply that your parents are backward and naïve. In this respect, theological education can be every bit as effective as smoking cannabis or moving in with your girl or boyfriend: but without all the bad smells.

7. Every true theologian is an avid collector of books. The day you became a theological student, you entered a race to amass a personal library larger and more impressive than those of your peers. Books should be acquired as quickly and as indiscriminately as possible; second-hand books are even better, since they give the appearance of having been read, which can save you a great deal of time.

8. When you are asked to preach, you should take the opportunity to display the advantages of theological education. Every good sermon should quote the words of some great theologian; even better, a “great German theologian”. Don't forget, pronouncing "Barth" as in the English "Bath" is absolutely correct. Saying "Bart" as in "Simpson" will surely provoke titters of amusement from an enlightened congregation. And the phrase “the original Greek says…” should be used sparingly but effectively – perhaps just eight or nine times in a sermon. The church will surely ask you back. Frequently.

9. The goal of theological education is a good career: preferably an academic career, although in some cases you might have to settle for pastoral ministry (or worse, a regular job). It’s never too early to get your career on track: every essay, every conversation with a professor, every question you ask in class – these are the opportunities to show the professor how deeply you share their opinions, and how superior your own insights are to those of your classmates. In all circumstances you should revere, admire and emulate your professors. Even if they are neither wise nor virtuous, your goal is to become their perfect reflection, mirroring back to them their own opinions, preferences and prejudices. To show that you are the professor’s true protégé: this is the beginning of wisdom, and the bedrock of any good career.

10. Under no circumstances should you resort to old-fashioned pieties like daily prayer and Bible-reading. There are far too many important things to be thinking about, and far too many important things to be reading. Church attendance is acceptable, however, since it gives you the opportunity of improving your pastor’s theological education.

I wonder if Pastor might appreciate my thoughts. Er..

The Pleasures of the Queue

No. I won’t. I will not queue to see Harry Blotter and the Ghastly Shallows Part The First accompanied by squeaking juveniles in winter dishdashas. Even if it is in 3D IMAX. At the 360 Mall. At least the queue was well-behaved, shuffling obediently forward for the 2.30 showing. Unlike the despicable events in the queue at the US premiere.  

That barometer of taste and decency, Holy Moly, put it so well…

As hundreds of fans queued up for a stupid amount of time for tonight's premiere of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, one man got a bit too excited and got arrested for exposing himself to the young girls in the queue. It was made all the odder by him looking like a wizard, which was probably all part of his devious plan.

Ah. Excellent. I myself was several thousand miles away, thus cannot be held responsible.

It's probably too obvious to suggest that he'd turned up looking for his wand to go Slytherin' up a wizard's sleeve, (oh, please...)or that he may have Genital Hogwarts, or (That's enough of that - Ed) Obviously this a creepy and despicable act, but I loved the fact that he looks EXACTLY like a baddy from Harry Potter and whilst I certainly wouldn't wish a pervert like this on young people... Some of them really are old enough to know better.

I was tempted to add an image at this point, but the perpetrator looked uncomfortably like me. Except for the nose and the eyes.

It's quite a puzzle to me since I still find myself creeping back to Hogwart’s in moments of (minor) crisis, wondering which character I most resemble. Is it Grumblebore or Griphook the Goblin? I think Harry’s wandwork is so much more orchestral in the books and seeing him fizzling Death Eaters and other associated crepuscular organisms is much less riveting than reading about it. And, no, I didn't go, so if you were expecting a witty and well-crafted review, there's a million of them on the Net. I shall wait until the froth has subsided and good seats are obtainable in the Bachelor’s Section. The Gipsy laughed at me. I shall go alone, much as Lisa Marie Presley ought to have done. She's the one on the right.


Much as I am certain to derive some quietly expressed amusement from the flying broomsticks, I do think my tastes are a little subtler these days. Russian Kusmi tea from Paris and Nespresso coffee. Passing the Nespresso shop in the 360 prompted a look at this. GC and JM, plus a couple of hotties. Oh, yeah.

Red Poppies Dance

Fresh perspectives illuminate ancient truths. Not being a liturgy junkie, faint whiffs of it are enough to bring me out in hives, but I have to admit to almost pleasant surprise the other day when reading some friends’ blog on symbology in worship. One rather creative and really quite powerful element in one of their meetings was an invitation to join with two others with three pieces of rope. Participants then tied the ropes together, helping each other to make the knots fast, symbolically joined in agreement in prayer. 

Billy Graham used to tell them ‘I want you all to get out of your seats…’. Brownsville encouraged ‘running to the mercy seat’. Whether or not one flies with the notion of a clear-cut, Damascus Road conversion or more like the little man in the tree, the idea of symbolic commemoration is both Biblical and (dare I speak the word) attractive, it would seem, to the human spirit.

Tomorrow being Remembrance Day, millions of poppies are sold worldwide – almost a liturgy of sorrow, perhaps. The fact that we tend to clothe it with ‘acts of worship’ seems to me – many disagree, I know, so no need to comment – to gild an already bloodstained lily. So, what about a liturgy of joy and consecration which is equally meaningful and thus can be celebrated? In the same series of meetings, new believers were encouraged to go and stand near one of the many mirrors surrounding the hall and, with a red marker, draw a bold red cross through their own image, symbolic of “I no longer, but he who dwells in me”. I couldn’t quite see myself doing it but, wow, I so wish I’d thought of it myself.

Wingless in Gaza

Doubtless it will come as something of a relief to hear that for a while I have had little to say. Or, at least, little to blog about. Recently, I have written about the juxtaposition of Guy Fawkes and religion elsewhere, pointing out that a predisposition for violence and destruction is not confined to cave-dwellers in the mountains of Northern Waziristan, but surfaces in historical narrative with the frequency of facial boils.

It came as a surprise to hear a piece on the World Service today about a man with a trip-hammer intellect, rated as one of the 500 most influential Muslims in the world. Naïf Al-Mutawa is a psychologist and entrepreneur, who also happens to be a friend's boss. The voice was remarkably young-sounding, attractive and articulate, Obama in a dishdasha, almost. He is the creative intellect behind “The 99” comics where interfaith dialogue reaches new heights as the '99' superheroes named after the names of Allah collaborate, share superpowers and problem-solve the Islamic way with the likes of Superman and Batman,  giving the bad guys a hiding. Excellent, stylish, conceptually almost brilliant and apart from a rather Charlton Heston look about the characters, very timely. Fresh eyes frequently bring enlightenment to otherwise jaded palates, and apart from a little local difficulty with the Saudis for whom such frivolity verges on the blasphemous, the concept has marketing wings, it would seem.

"I insisted on the relationship starting out as distrust between both sides of superheroes,” Al-Mutawa said. "The characters will realize that their mutual suspicions empower the real nemesis. “It will only be through trust that the bad guys are going to be beaten.”

Impressive spin indeed. It does seem rather a shame that Hamas and all the rest of the lunatic fringe seem not to read many comics.

Things Not Said

It's rare for me to pick a film at random that really turns out to be a winner. The Grand Jury prize at the Sundance Festival in 2010 went to "Winter's Bone". Filmed entirely on location during late autumn and winter in rural Missouri, the film makes up for small budget with beautifully crafted cinematography and a bleak, sparse dialogue, much provided by the locals, hence with accents so thick it's hard to make out what's being said. With an absent father who is in some unspecified fashion, part of the local trade in crystal meth manufacture and a withdrawn, incompetent and depressed mother, a glowering, taut Jennifer Lawrence is Ree Dolly, a seventeen year old earth mother trying to put food on the table for her and two younger siblings in a dirt poor Ozark log cabin, a teenage girl forced into adulthood. Her father has put up their house as bail collateral and unless he shows up for his trial in a week's time, they will lose it all. All attempts to find him meet with a wall of inbred hostility and menacing silence from family and the local community. It’s a powerful articulation of a vulnerable child-woman pitilessly hurled into a brutally tough, unnerving maternal stance, with Lawrence triumphantly shaping Ree as a soldier fighting for her home - the only shred of comfort she has left in a life of unremitting austerity and misery.

The audience is left with minimal clues as to exactly what is happening or about to happen - we are expected to piece together the snippets, making sense of them as we go. Unspoken dialogue revolves around a jagged 'omertá' which the participants believe holds their fragile social fabric together. Think unvarnished Coen brothers and you're some way there - there was more than a hint of "No Country for Old Men" in the screenwriting.

What's not said became more significant than what was.

I found myself in an interaction the other day which was less conversation than monologue where words were plentiful but what was not said spoke much more loudly to me than what was. Advice to listen to the actual words, although valuable, became contextually meaningless since I formed the impression that the purpose of the conversation was to supply me with a subtext, perhaps subconsciously. I tried hard to follow this advice, but found myself returning to an initial impression that I was being subjected to diplomacy clad poorly - in the kindest and most well-meaning sense - as of an actor playing a role which I was supposed to see through.

I was left with a nagging disquiet, since truth unvarnished, preferably whole, is almost always better than dressing it up in cheap clothes.

Retired and Extremely Dangerous

A friend was kind enough to give me a copy of "Red", the new Bruce Willis film. I was excited to learn that RED means 'retired and extremely dangerous'. As a retiree not so long in the future myself, having this on one's dossier might be quite a buzz, I think. Willis is getting good at spoof and this one is the spoof spy movie par excellence. Willis is retired CIA Frank Moses with a black ops record that not even half the Agency can read because it's so secret. In retirement, his principal source of daily entertainment is a lingering, distant, unconsummated, internet relationship with Sarah (Mary-Louise Parker), an office girl in the Pensions Department of spectacular ordinariness whom he’s never met. As Frank’s former government employers begin to demonstrate determinedly murderous intent, Sarah becomes a wide-eyed, unwitting accomplice in Frank’s attempts to escape their gunsights. So, Frank junkets around the country, gathering intelligence, with postcards telling us where he is and his pursuers waste a shockingly profligate amount of ordnance trying to finish him off . Willis collects Morgan Freeman, the elder retiree "we're getting the band together again" together with a paranoid John Malkovich who talks to a furry pink pig containing advanced weaponry because the CIA fed him LSD for fifteen years, thus making him a little bit strange, and Victoria, a spectacularly girly Helen Mirren formerly of MI6 who used to kill people for a living but now prefers cookery and flower arranging with the odd contract to keep her hand in. All of them used to be the CIA's top agents, but the secrets they know have made them the Agency's prime targets. Framed for assassination, they use all of their collective cunning, experience and teamwork to stay one step ahead of their pursuers and stay alive, keeping the hapless and permanently bewildered Mary Louise Parker alive as well. To stop the operation, the team embarks on an impossible, cross-country mission to break into the top-secret CIA headquarters, where they will uncover one of the biggest conspiracies and cover-ups in government history. Fur-hatted Russians are involved, the US Vice-president is using the CIA as his personal hit squad and there's some memorable one-liners "if you break his heart, I'll kill you and bury your body in the woods". There's a sense of almost apologetic self-consciousness. The cast is so very seasoned and they can pull this sort of thing off so very, very easily. They're all too clever by three-quarters. And they know it. Eight out of ten. At least.

Cold Nights at the UN

I like Canadians. They’re like Americans with manners. They have sometimes been criticised as a colourless people, the cold winters perhaps making their yesses "yes" and their noes 'no"- probably before their lips freeze - a people of robust opinions but often economical with words, lacking the flamboyance, even hypocrisy of their southern neighbours.

This does not sit well in the UN, it seems, since Canada at the weekend decided to drop out of the race for a non-permanent seat at the UN Security Council since after the last round of voting the General Assembly put it in last place among the contenders. Canadian media believes its support of Israel is the primary reason. 

Canada has long held a non-permanent seat at the Security Council. But with current Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s consistent support for the Jewish state at the world body, the non-aligned movement of nations, which are a Muslim majority at the UN, began to bare their teeth.

Toronto Sun columnist Peter Worthington wrote on Sunday that “Canada’s  unqualified support for Israel under Harper worked against us at the UN, which regularly condemns Israel for policies it ignores in other countries.”

Bravely, Worthington decried the hypocrisy that rules the UN, noting that “while the UN regularly votes in favour of human rights, roughly half of the 192 member states abuse human rights in some form in their own countries.”

He concluded by condemning the UN as an institution that had long ago abandoned its position as a credible and objective broker and protector of peace and human rights, and wondered “why decent countries still pay attention to it.” Muscular indeed, if a little politically naive. It remains to be seen how Canadian voters will react.

Countries that did make it on to the Security Council included Lebanon, which with Hezbollah’s growing power and influence is an Iranian satellite, also  Brazil, which has aligned itself with Iran in its nuclear arms race. Canada is fast learning what most Israelis have known for a long time - that economic and political stability, dedication to human rights and basic human decency don’t mean jack at the UN. It has long struck me that the UN as an institution is a puppet show of spectacular and convoluted magnitude. Shadowy figures who rule with fists of iron send their most siren voices, clothed in some semblance of democracy to Manhattan to gather whatever political momentum they can.

The speaker at the podium, however, is no siren voice. He isn't Canadian and his country probably has nuclear capability. And will someone please buy the wretched man a tie.