Heresy

Being something of a heretic myself, in a modest sort of way, I was interested to read Alister McGrath's Heresy.  McGrath is currently a theology professor at Kings College, London and has a glittering academic carreer, representing the educated face of moderate orthodox Christianity in the UK and beyond.  I've enjoyed a couple of his previous books - The Twilight of Atheism provides a handy, accessible summary of the trajectory of atheist ideas in modern Western thought, while The Dawkins Delusion provides a pithy response to Richard Dawkins The God Delusion.

Here he's moved on from atheism, which challenges the church from without, to heresy, which provides a challenge from within.  He is at pains to stress that heretics ancient and modern are not outsiders attacking the church, they are insiders trying to reform it, generally with the best of intentions. 

So what is it that distinguishes heresy from orthodoxy?  There is a thread of thinking in 20th and 21st century theology that identifies heresies as "suppressed orthodoxies" and sees the church enforcing orthodoxy as a way of asserting its power.  In this analysis, what defines heresy is that it challenges authority, not that it is intrinsically less true or less helpful than orthdoxy.  For a-post-modern theologian it is a short step from here to enbracing heresy as a form of liberation.

McGrath challenges this viewpoint for two reasons.  First of all, he says that the "classic" heresies date from a time when the church authorites had no secular power and no way to enforce conformity on erring churches or church leaders.  Secondly, many of the classic heresies were far from liberating, often much less so than orthodoxy.

Instead, McGrath views heresies as failed attempts to express the ultimately inexpressible truth of Christianity.  He sees orthodoxy as the best approximation of this truth although always open to restatement and refinement. 

Heresy is best seen as a form of Christian belief that, more by accident than design, ultimately ends up subverting, destabilising, or even destroying the core of Christian faith.  Both this destablisation and the identification of this threat may be spread out over an extended period of time.  A way of making sense of one aspect of the Christian faith, such as the identity of Jesus of Nazareth - an aspect that may initially be welcomed and find general acceptance - may later have to be discontinued on account of the potential damage it is subsequently capable of causing.

Behind this view is a view of gradually developing orthodoxy.  The first Christians, he says, were not that concerned with articulating an orthodox theology, since their focus was on survival in a hostile social environment.  Later, church leaders realised that to engage with the culture in which they found themselves it was not enough to simply restate the views of the apostles - these needed to be explained and systematised in a way which made sense in the social and philosophical environment of the late Roman Empire.

Using this framework, the middle section of the book examines a number of classic heresies from the first five centuries of the Church.  Nascent orthodoxy is shown charting a difficult middle course between absorption back into Judaism (the Ebionites) and severance of all connection with its Jewish roots (Marcion); between seeing Jesus as a god who pretended to be human (Valentinism) and as a man specially chosen by God (Arianism); between libertarian laxity (the church in Rome post-Constantine) and focus on moral perfection to the exclusion of forgiveness and grace (Pelagianism and Donatism).  In each case, he shows orthodoxy as an emerging consensus rather than the imposition of some sort of church authority - Constantine personally favoured Arius, but supported the clear majority at the Council of Nicea, Augustine was seen as a rural outsider by the Pelagians in Rome yet his views ultimately triumphed. 

All of which begs the question.  As a protestant, how does McGrath account for his own status as a heretic in the eyes of the Roman church?  He deals with this, to some extent, in the final part of the book.  Later in the church's history, he says, it became a secular power, and the declaration of heresy became a weapon in the fight to retain social control.  Wycliffe was condemned for challenging papal authority, not for holding any hereticial views.  Luther and Calvin were branded heretics when actually they were entirely orthodox but critical of certain peripheral church practices and teachings. 

Perhaps it's just me, but this seems like a rather uneasy compromise.  One the one hand the classic heresies - the ones McGrath rejects - are eliminated by an emerging consensus as subverting or damaging the "core of the Christian faith".  On the other, the ones he accepts (the key issues on which Protestantism differs from Catholicism) are peripheral issues mislabelled as heresies and are victims of the abuse of political power.  He argues his case well, but it seems just a little too convenient.

Anyway, we'll soon get to see if his theory works.  The church in the 21st century is in a very similar situation to that in the first, second and third.  It is fragmented, it has no political power and weak central control (none in the case of Protestants), and it is under threat in many places.  Christians are struggling to rearticulate their faith in the light of new scientific knowledge, new global challenges and new philosophical understandings of truth.  Is it possible for a new consensus to emerge organically, as McGrath thinks orthodoxy did in those formative centuries?  How would such an agreement be reached, and what would be the fate of the currently competing viewpoints?  More importantly what would such a consensus, if it could be achieved, actually look like?

Stopping the Boats

So, the talks between Government and Opposition on reviving offshore processing have collapsed.  Even though both government and opposition want basically the same thing, each wants their own version of it and neither will compromise.  This is undoubtedly good news for asylum seekers, at least in the short term, because Australia's current laws as interpreted by the High Court are more compassionate than either of our main parties would like them to be.

Meanwhile, Tony Abbot has plumbed new depths of absurdity in this increasingly absurd debate, suggesting that a Coalition Government would return boats to Indonesia.   As usual, Abbot is a little short on practicality here. 

First of all, there is the issue of detecting the boats.  The ocean is wide, the boats are small.  Often the first Australian authorities know of their existence is when they chug into the dock on Christmas Island.

Secondly, there is the issue of the process of their return.  Most of the boats are not seaworthy, so it is irresponsible to send them back unaccompanied.  The alternative of towing them back, or ferrying the passengers back on coastguard ships, is unlikely to be popular with our friends in Indonesia - not to mention that while the towing is taking place, other boats can't be intercepted.

Speaking of Indonesia, what do they think of all this?  Well from the evidence in the Australian media, they are sensibly staying out of the silliness that passes for Australian politics.  However, I suspect that they are likely to say that Australia should solve its own refugee problems, and refuse any such boats permission to enter Indonesian waters.  All of which is also very unhelpful.

Hence we have seen Abbot, Australia's most prominent cyclist, back-pedalling furiously, inserting the words "where possible" into the equation and going back to the same old same old of Temporary Protection Visas and reopening the Nauru detention centre.

Which brings me to the real point.  Before anything else, good policy is about clearly defining your objectives, and then finding credible ways of achieving them.  If you can't find a way of achieving your objective, or the achievement of the objective causes too much collateral damage, you need to change your objective. 

Both of our major parties have allowed themselves to be persuaded that the major objective is to stop unauthorised arrivals into Australia.  Their main way of achieving this is to provide a deterrent - imprison the smugglers, hold refugees in detention for long periods.  When this doesn't work, their response is to up the deterrent - Labor wants to send them to Malaysia, the Coalition wants to send them to Nauru or back to Indonesia and if they can't do that re-introduce Temporary Protection Visas.  Flogging is presumably not far off, and some of the proposed solutions already look unconscionably close to drowning.

I have two problems with this.  Firstly, I think the objective is wrong.  These are people fleeing persecution, war or other forms of suffering, and the prime objective should be to provide them with refuge and safety.  This is not to say this needs to happen in Australia.  One of the reasons people make these boat jouneys is that neither Indonesia nor Malaysia are signatories to the United Nations refugee convention so asylum seekers are unable to gain any legal status in those countries.  Changes in those and other countries would save people a dangerous boat trip.  However, until those changes take place, we need to be prepared to deal humanely with those who do arrive here.

Secondly, the collateral damage is too great.  The financial cost of our deterrent measures is exhorbitant, and increases as we try to up the deterrent.  Latest Immigration Department estimates suggest that re-opening the Nauru detention centre will cost $1.7b.  This figure may be inflated for political purposes, but even the previous estimate of just under $1b is exhorbitant. 

However, this is a lesser concern to the human cost.  Extended detention (especially in overcrowded centres), long periods of uncertainty and deportation are huge sources of trauma for refugees, already traumatised by their experiences in their home countries.  These are people whose only "crime" is to seek refuge.

I've already said what I think we should do and if you missed it you can read it here.  It's time for us to wake up and rediscover our compassion and generosity.

Flood and Fall

Finkelstein and Silberman suggest that the book of Genesis began life as a series of orally transmitted stories which were turned into literary form relatively late in the piece.  It is possible that the first eleven chapters, in particular, consist of orginally unconnected material, with the genealogies serving as a literary device to tie them together.

If this is true, then it is possible to see that there is not one but four stories of the Fall in Genesis.  There is the one we usually associate with it, found in Genesis 2 and 3.  Then there are the stories of Cain and Abel (Genesis 4), the Great Flood (Genesis 6-8) and the Tower of Babel (Genesis 11).  All four stories feature the same core elements - humans fail to live up to God's standard, God intervenes to punish them or prevent them from doing more harm, and there is a form of redemption at the end.  I'll talk about Cain and Abel and Babel later, but first the Flood.

Two things surprise me about this story.  The first is that it doesn't give biblical literalists a lot more trouble.  Of course I've heard the rather unconvincing explanations about oceanic fossils on mountaintops and geological features caused by wave action (all easily refuted in the light of what has been discovered about geology and paleontology in the 200 years since such claims were last taken seriously by scientists) but the biggest killer for me is how the creatures managed to survive afterwards.  Even assuming the herbivores could find enough to eat in the devastated landscape, they would all be eaten by the carnivores in the first few weeks after which the carnivores would starve and the earth would be left to the cockroaches and cane toads.

But enough pot-shots at easy targets.  A more interesting surprise is that this story is an incredibly popular children's tale.  Of course boats and cute animals do provide a lot of opportunities for illustrators, but this is the darkest of the Fall stories.  Here's how it begins in Chapter 6.

⁵ The LORD saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time. ⁶ The LORD regretted that he had made human beings on the earth, and his heart was deeply troubled. ⁷ So the LORD said, “I will wipe from the face of the earth the human race I have created—and with them the animals, the birds and the creatures that move along the ground—for I regret that I have made them.” ⁸ But Noah found favor in the eyes of the LORD.

It's easy for the cute animals to blind us to the scale of destruction.  Whereas in the Adam and Eve story there are only two humans, and they are the only ones punished, here there are lots, and everyone gets it.  Not only the humans (including presumably infants) but all the animals and birds, despite their innocence of human crime, are given the death sentence.  The rest of the tale tells how it was done.  The LORD inundates the earth with water, huge volumes of water, for 40 days.  It takes 150 days to recede.  All terrestrial life is wiped out, save for a small remnant - Noah and his family, and a breeding pair of each species of animal (plus a larger stock of domestic animals), sheltering in a huge boat the LORD has ordered Noah to build.

This is where it doesn't pay to be a literalist or to believe in inerrancy.  A god who actually does this kind of destruction would be a monster.  Explain that to your Sunday School class.  This is one of those difficult stories, and Christians who don't struggle with it are just not paying attention.

I don't know the answer, but let me suggest a couple of things. 

Firstly, stories of great floods are widespread around the globe, because flooding is pretty much universal.  I can tell you from personal experience that it is extremely unpleasant and destructive, and something of this universal experience is translated and exaggerated in this story.  It reminds us of how precarious our lives really are.

Secondly, the story is a classic warning tale.  Noah sets a standard for human behaviour.  It is not a moral standard - no morality is discussed in this story - it is a standard of fidelity.  He obeys God in the building of the ark, but more importantly the first thing he does when he steps on dry land is build an altar, and make a sacrifice.  This is how we should all act, it says.

Thirdly, the story contrasts an imagined past with a much better, safer present.

²¹ The LORD smelled the pleasing aroma and said in his heart: “Never again will I curse the ground because of humans, even though every inclination of the human heart is evil from childhood. And never again will I destroy all living creatures, as I have done.
²² “As long as the earth endures,
seedtime and harvest,
cold and heat,
summer and winter,
day and night
will never cease.”

Just as the LORD made clothes for Adam and Eve after the fall, so here he promises future protection to Noah's descendents.  The readers of the story need not fear a repeat of such desctruction, because God favours them and promises to care for them.  This promise is open-ended.  The rainbow is seen to this day as a symbol of hope, or new beginnings, of good times following bad.  As we face the possibility of another ecological catastrophe, perhaps this story can give us hope.

God's Undertaker

Oxford mathematics professor and Christian apologist John C Lennox has recently acheived a high profile in Australia due to an appearance on the ABC's Q&A.  He has also debated noted atheists like Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins and Michael Shermer.  All of which means that sooner or later I was bound to check him out.

God's Undertaker: Has Science Buried God? is Lennox's summary of his arguments against the "scientific atheism" of the likes of Dawkins and Shermer.  Its central question is whether the evidence of science has really killed off the idea of God.  His main antagonist in this debate seems to be Dawkins, and a number of chapters in this book are direct refutations of claims made by Dawkins - that the process of natural selection is sufficient to explain the origin of life, that an interventionist god violates the laws of nature, that David Hume's arguments are a conclusive philosophical refutation of the possibility of miracles.

In the process, Lennox brings to bear the findings and observations of a range of distinguished scientists - Nobel Prize winners, Fellows of the Royal Society, professors at prestigious universities, and so forth.  Some of these are Christian, others are agnostic and some are even atheists, but they appear to share the view that science does not of itself disprove religion.  On what grounds?

Well, interestingly, the central theme of this book is a revival of the "argument from design", roundly mocked by atheists in the form popularly proposed by William Paley in the 18th Century - the analogy of discovering a watch and inferring the existence of a watchmaker.  Paley, and Lennox, both suggest that life as we know it is irreducably complex, that it could not come about by chance and the only possible explanation is that it has an intelligent designer. 

Lennox gives this argument a 21st Century makeover using the findings of modern physics, cosmology, genetics, and even paleontology.  Not surpisingly, as a mathematician he applies a liberal dose of probability calculation.  His calculations quickly exhausted by limted maths, but his conclusions are clear.

Firstly, he highlights the sensitivity of the boundary conditions for life set by our universe's physical constraints.  The slightest difference in such parameters as the nuclear background radiation required for the creation of carbon, the ratio of the nuclear strong force to the electromagnetic force or the rate of entropy would make life impossible.  There is no theoretcial reason, he says, why things have to be the incredibnly improbable way they are, yet somehow they got to be just right for our arrival.

His most sustained attention, however, is focused on the probability of the chance emergence of the building blocks of life - amino acids, proteins, DNA and RNA.  "Pure" evolutionists argue for the emergence of these molecules gradually, over a period of billions of years.  Yet the information encoded even in amino acids is incredibly complex.  How could this complexity come about by chance.  His calculations of the probability of these chance develops produce mind-bogglingly large numbers, and he concludes that in practice they amount to impossiblity within the time-frames available.

What's most facinating is that of course Dawkins et al also know this.  Their response is that obviously there is something more than pure chance going on - nature is able to select for certain things, so that once they appear they self-perpetuate and accumulate.  Lennox turns this argument on its head, arguing that this can only be the case if the pattern for life is already existent, so that the process of evolution somehow "seeks" that pattern.  In Lennox's hands, Dawkins' attempts to demonstrate the possibility of chance producing life turn out to be examples of intelligent design.  Dawkins's computer simulations only work if they are already encoded with their end goal. 

I can hardly do justice to the full scope of his arguments.  His maths is beyond me, as is his physics, cosmology and genetics.  His array of eminent sources is certainly impressive as is his own scientific pedigree, and he is certainly not to be dismissed lightly, but in the end I can only take his world for it. 

It seems to me that he is far from proving his case and perhaps that is not his intent.  He has strayed into realms of such massive uncertainty that in the end we just have to say we don't know.  We know a lot about how things work now.  We have mapped the human genome and the extent of the galaxy.  We have detailed knowledge of biochemistry and a huge, although partial, fossil database.  However, the task of projecting backwards from this evidence to its origin is so incredibly speculative that it will inevitably be tainted by our worldview.  Lennox sees God, Dawkins sees chance.  Which God, or which chance?  These are questions of philosophy and theology, not of science.  In the end, Lennox convinces that the debate is still alive, and Dawkins' strident claims of victory are hugely premature.  Rumours of God's death are greatly exaggerated.

The Kindness of Strangers

Speaking of the Fall, my relaxing holiday reading this Saturnalia, has been AJ Mackinnon's lovely travel story The Unlikely Voyage of Jack de Crow.  Mackinnon tells the story of his journey through the waterways of Europe, from Wales to the Black Sea, in a 10 ft sailing dinghy.  It's glorious fun, with the odd hair-raising incident to keep the adrenaline going.  Like to try crossing the English Channel in a dinghy?  Without any larger craft accompanying?  Like to be accosted by pirates in remote Bulgaria?  Like to be stuck in Serbia as NATO is about to begin bombing?

Apart from the comedy and high farce, one of his most persistent themes is the kindness of strangers.  Just when he is about to despair, his boat is ready to fall to pieces, he is starving and out of cash in a Visa-less country, or some other disaster strikes, some complete stranger steps up with carpentry tools and expertise, good home cooked food, a towrope, a place of shelter, a kind word or gesture.  Across the length and breadth of Europe, pirates and Milosevic notwithstanding, kindness far outweighs cruelty or indifference.

Meanwhile, in a different kind of fall, my cousin and fellow blogger Roo had a mountain biking accident on New Year's Eve.  No permanent damage but a painful injury meant his son had to call the ambulance and they had to retrieve him from bushland.  Exploiting the privileges of confirmation bias to the full he says:  "People were so wonderful, generous and helpful. Sorry, my Christian brethren, but I don't think humans are 'fallen' at all."

So twice proves it, and it led my thoughts to Creation Spirituality and a book I read years ago by one of the founders of the CS movement, Matthew Fox, called On Becoming a Musical Mystical Bear.  Despite its unblievably kitschy title and equally kitschy 1970s cover, this is actually a brilliant book which has had a huge influence on me over the past 20 years.

Fox's basic idea is that creation represents the "original blessing".  He opposes to the life-denying tendencies of traditional theology, influenced by the neo-Platonists and passed to us via Augustine and the likes of Thomas a Kempis, a life-affirming, joyous spirituality based on appreciating and enjoying God's gift of creation, and working fervently to preserve its goodness in all its forms.

For we have numerous instances in Western spiritualities of life-denying rather than a life-affirming spirituality....  Repression, not expression; guilt, not pleasure; heaven, not this life; sentimentality, not justice; mortification, not developing of talents: these are the earmarks of what Western spirituality has for the most part done with the thought of Plato and the neo-Platonists (who always preferred a different world to this one); of Augustine (who...dichotomised the body and soul, man and woman, creation and grace and founded Chrisitan faith on belief in the Fall rather than in creation)....  (These spiritualities) can lead to life-denial and deep human pessimism.  Yet they have invariably been the more popular and influential spirituality in Christianity.

By contrast, Fox has spent his life trying to build an alternative kind of spirituality.  He works towards a "creation-centred, that is, a life-affirming spirituality", knowing "how to enjoy life without feeling guilty", while at the same time "preparing to 'stick out his chin' for justice's sake - that is to share life whatever the personal cost.  This tension is the substratum on which an adult, creation-centred spirituality is based.  It is the spirituality that Jesus practiced...."

Fox doesn't deny the Fall, in that he recognises that things in the world are not as they should be.  There are still pirates, NATO still drops bombs, people like Milosevic still get to ruin countries.  He emphasises the prophetic tradition which calls for justice and opposes oppression.  Yet he doesn't believe the presence of evil in the world negates the basic goodness of God's creation, the value of this life or the image of God which each of us carries.  We can be kind to stangers - indeed, we often are - because that is how God made us, and that is how God is. 

Discovering We Are Naked

Prompted by reading an essay by Wendell Berry, I've been thinking about the second and third chapters of Genesis and what they have to say about our current environmental predicament.

Many scholars think these two chapters represent the earliest Hebrew version of the creation account, with the opening chapter added at a later date.  They record the creation of humanity, and the fall of the first humans from their state of innocence.

We are accustomed to think of ourselves as somewhat separate from nature, as shown in the diagram below.

We understand that we are, to some extent, natural beings.  We know we need to eat and drink, that we get sick.  However, we see ourselves as fundamentally different from the rest of creation.  Hence, we see "nature" as something to be conserved, managed or exploited by us.  This is why we are able to talk so easily about balancing environmental and economic factors, for instance, as if the economy was something seperate from the environment, or nature was just one factor of production.

This is not the picture I see in the second chapter of Genesis. 

...the LORD God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.

We are made of dirt.  God did not make the earth, and then make us.  He formed us from the materials that were already there.  We are wholly creatures of the earth, coming from the dust and returning to it. 

The LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it.

We live in the garden, and our primary task is its care.  The garden was not planted for us, it was planted by God for reasons which are not explained.  Instead, we were created - from the same materials used to create it - to care for it on God's behalf.  The diagram should really look like the one below.

We are a part of God's creation, with our own job to do and our own particular characteristics amongst all the other diverse creatures God has made.  So how did we come to see ourselves as separate from it?  Chapter 3 gives us the answer.

The serpent, it says, tempted Eve with the prospect of becoming "like God, knowing good and evil".  There is no word in the English language adequate to translate the Hebrew word yada, rendered here as "knowing".  When we think of "knowing", we think of intellectual knowledge, of information.  Yet the word is used in a wide variety of contexts.  It serves, for instance, as a euphemism for sexual intercourse, as a description for intimate friendship or acquaintance, as an abilty to discern or decide, to declare or instruct. 

Good and evil, the serpent suggested, would become Adam and Eve's constant companions, the subject of their deepest thoughts.  They would not only recognise good and evil when they saw it, they would declare some things good and others evil.  They would no longer simply occupy their place in the natural world, they would stand above it as its judges, arbiters and controllers. 

The results were immediate.  They knew themselves to be naked, and they hid.  They were no longer comfortable in their own skins, in their natural state.  They needed something more - leaves, animal skins.  They began to exploit nature, to cover their nakedness and make up for their discomfort with who they were.  They began to justify themselves (another aspect of yada) and to make excuses.

The LORD understands that there is no going back.  Indeed, he himself placed the cherubim with the flaming sword to bar that way.  The human dream of a return to Arcadia, that state of blissful nature, is just that.  We have knowledge and we cannot un-know.  The question is, how will we use it?  Will we remember our own nakedness, our own vulnerability?  Will we remember that we are made out of dirt, the same substance that made the forests, the animals , the birds?  Will we learn once again to tend the garden?  Or will we persist in defining good and evil in a way that ensures our return to the dirt from whence we came?

The Bible Unearthed

Happy New Year everyone.  I trust 2012 is a better year than 2011 or, if 2011 was the best year of your life so far, that at least the comedown is unspectacular.

In between eating, sleeping and watching cricket I've been reading The Bible Unearthed, an earlier book by Israel Finkelstein and Neil Asher Silberman, authors of David and Solomon.  This book operates on a broader canvas, providing an overview of the latest (at least up to their time of writing in 2001) archaeological evidence about the times in which the Hebrew Scriptures, the Old Testament, are set.

Finkelstein and Silbermann are serious and distinguished historians and archaeologists, not eccentric amateurs like Tony Bushby or Stephan Huller.  They carefully cite and sift their sources, build their arguments from evidence and are careful to avoid overclaiming.  Nonetheless it is important to remember that archaeological evidence is intrinsically partial.  In a country which has been continuously occupied for millennia, there is little that is undisturbed, and many key sites can't be excavated because they are still being used.  For instance, there is little archaeological data available about the Jerusalem temple because the site is currently the second holiest mosque in Islam and digging it up would be considered sacrilege.  Another major discovery, or another decade or two of patient research, could turn the whole thing on its head.

Still, there's a surprising amount of evidence.  The absence of any trace of the patriarchs (Abraham, Isaac and Jacob) doesn't tell us much, because a small band of nomadic pastoralists would be unlikely to leave much evidence.  However, the absence of any independent verification of the Exodus is more telling.  The cumulative failure to uncover any evidence of a mass emigration from Egypt, a large group of people wandering in the Negev, or a sudden devastating conquest in Canaan,  types and scales of events which would leave an imprint on the landscape and on the cities of the time, provides a much stronger suggestion that the exodus and invasion are not actual historical events.

Other bits of evidence are more positive.  For instance, a comparison of the locations of events in Genesis with archaeological data reveals that the historical setting of the partiarchal tales is not the world of the Bronze Age where the Biblical chronology would place them, but of seventh century Canaan.  Whatever the origin of these stories, the authors of Genesis have placed them in their own world, in the places their readers would know and recognise. 

It's also fascinating to get a picture of the social conditions in the time of the Israelite kingdom.  According to their best evidence, the settled population of Israel and Judah in the time of David and Solomon would have been around 50,000 people.  The peak population of the kingdom of Israel in the time of Jereboam II would have been around 350,000, while that of Judah in the time of Hezekiah would have reached no more than 100,000.  Of these, most were illiterate peasants, with a small population of "elites" - soldiers, priests and royal officials.  These two kingdoms at their peak were closely integrated, economically and politically, with the empires of the Near East, particularly the Assyrians and later the Babylonians.

These are just samples of the wealth of evidence the authors bring to bear.  The picture that emerges from their combination of archaeology and biblical scholarship is strongly at odds with the literal view of the Bible.  The core of the Old Testament history as we know it - what biblical scholars call the "Deuteronomistic history" including the early versions of the books of Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, Samuel and Kings as well as edited versions of the rest of the Pentateuch - was created in seventh century Judah, especially the time of King Josiah.  This is not to say that the stories themselves were created then - they are almost certainly drawn from pre-existing oral and in some cases written accounts.  But the stories were adapted and retold to fit the purpose of Josiah's court, to tell a story which united the Hebrews as a nation, justified Josiah's territorial ambitions (and those of his grandfather Hezekiah) and their religious reforms which centred the worship of Yahweh in Jerusalem and outlawed alternative religious practices. 

What is presented in these stories is not so much a history as a theory of history.  According to this theory, Yahweh chose the Hebrews to be his own special people and gave them the land of Canaan.  However, in return the people and leaders needed to remain faithful to Yahweh.  In the times they were faithful - during the time of David, for instance, and in the reigns of Jehosophat, Hezekiah and Josiah - Yahweh blessed them and protected them.  When they were unfaithful he punished them by allowing them to be invaded by the surrounding nations, particularly the great empires.  The conclusion was that Israel should remain faithful to Yahweh, obeying His law, keeping separate from the surrounding peoples and forsaking all other gods.

Unfortunately, on Finkelstein and Silberman's reading the evidence is at odds with this theory.  The glories of David and Solomon are at best exaggerations, contradicted by the archaeological evidence of a poor, sparsely populated region with no evidence of widespread literacy or centralised rule.  The most prosperous periods in the Northern kingdom were those of the Omride kings, particularly the notorious Ahab.  The eras of greatest prosperity in Judah were those of the "bad" Davidic kings Ahaz and Manasseh, whose cooperation with the Assyrians led to increased wealth and booming populations.  By contrast, the kings most highly praised by the Deuternomistic authors - Hezekiah and Josiah - followed a course which led to disaster.  Hezekiah managed to avoid the destruction of Jerusalem but the rest of Judah was devastated as the Assyrians put down his revolt.  Similarly Josiah's ambitions led to the invasion and ultimate destruction of the kingdom. 

The Deuternomists said Israel should isolate itself from the surrounding nations, pursue ambitious territorial goals, and rely on Yahweh for military assistance.  The lesson of the archaeological evidence, on the other hand, is that if you want your kingdom to prosper you should integrate with the surrounding peoples, appease the great powers and trade to your heart's content.  This is not, of course, without its dangers for a small kingdom.  You can back the wrong imperial power, as the later northern kings did.  If the empires change their policy, you are powerless to resist.  You can lose who you are.

This is where the genius of these stories lies.  Of all the peoples conquered and dispersed by the Assyrians and Babylonians, how many retain their identity to this day?  The ideas of the Deuternomists were disastrous as political strategies, but as strategies for cultural survival they were brilliant, motivating the return from exile, the creation of an enduring Jewish identity, and the spawning of a set of religious ideas that sit at the base of the two largest world religions today.  It doesn't have to be history to do that.

Value in the Dressing Room

It being the lazy post-Christmas season I'll just have to write you a post about Cricket.  American readers might like to wait for something else to pop up, or else try this helpful explanation of the game, or perhaps this more detailed one. 

Many commentators have been calling for the heads of veteran batsmen Ricky Ponting and Mike Hussey, but both have been picked for the Boxing Day Test.  Australia's new Chairman of Selectors John Inverarity explains that both players provide "great value in the dressing room".

This is is obviously a good thing as both have been spending a lot of time there lately.  They are clearly needed in the team, because while these two experienced players are devoting themselves to the dressing room, some other players are letting the side down.

Of course the bowlers can't be blamed.  They routinely spend long hours with their mates, followed by a brief stint batting and a swift return to the bosom of the team.  This means you can be fairly relaxed about which bowlers you select, since they all provide pretty much the same dressing room value.  This policy particularly applies to spinners - you can practically pick any spinner you like.  However, there are exceptions.  Nathan Hauritz, for instance, provided great dressing room value early in his Test career.  However, the longer he stayed in the team the more inclination he showed to stay away from his mates, and eventually the selectors' patience ran out.

No, it's the batsmen you need to worry most about.  Some of the recent additions to the Test team have shown a worrying lack of dressing room form.  David Warner is a case in point.  Selectors had high hopes for him, with his reputation for quickfire batting stints followed by long dressing room contributions.  So far in Test cricket his performances in this regard have been adequate, but there have been some alarming lapses.  The warning signs were there in the second innings of the Brisbane Test, with his failure to return to the dressing room until right at the end of the game, but the second innings in Hobart must really have the selectors worrying.  Warner went out to bat at the very start of the innings and failed to return for more than five hours, only reluctantly dragging himself back to the room when the last of his batting partners refused to stay with him any longer.  No doubt his captain will have something to say about this.

Which leaves me wondering about the recent dropping of Phil Hughes.  Early in his carreer, Hughes appeared almost incapable of spending time in the dressing room.  In his first two tests, on tour in South Africa, he was absent for over 12 hours.  Little wonder he was dropped early in the following tour of England.  Nonetheless, his form in the current Australian summer has been a huge improvement, with less than two hours absence in the recent series against New Zealand.  His axing for the India Test is baffling to say the least, especially when his replacement, Ed Cowan, seemed determined to do everything in his power to avoid the dressing room in the first innings against India on Boxing Day.

Of course the strains of captaincy are taking their toll on Michael Clarke, with long absences in South Africa and again in Brisbane an obvious sign that he is taking some time to settle into the role.  This is why Ponting and especially Hussey are so important to the team.  Ponting's contributions have been slipping a little of late but he has been a consistent contributor over the past two years, and his performance in his home Test in Hobart was outstanding, with all but an hour spent in the company of his team.  However, with Ponting's recent form a little patchy and Clarke struggling, Hussey has to bear more of the load than he really should.  His performance in the New Zealand series was world class, with only 66 minutes in absentia across the two Tests.  The man they call Mr Cricket is a durable, determined performer but surely he can't be expected to bear this kind of load every game.  Some of the young players will need to start stepping up soon.

Happy Saturnalia

It being Christmas, I've been thinking about Saturnalia, of course, and this led me to remember a fascinating passage in Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People.  Writing in 601 AD, Pope Gregory sends Abbot Mellitus to help out Augustine, the first Roman missionary to the Anglo-Saxons in Britain.  Among various instructions, he says this:

When, therefore, Almighty God shall bring you to the most reverend Bishop Augustine, our brother, tell him what I have, upon mature deliberation on the affair of the English, determined upon, viz., that the temples of the idols in that nation ought not to be destroyed; but let the idols that are in them be destroyed; let holy water be made and sprinkled in the said temples, let altars be erected, and relics placed. For if those temples are well built, it is requisite that they be converted from the worship of devils to the service of the true God; that the nation, seeing that their temples are not destroyed, may remove error from their hearts, and knowing and adoring the true God, may the more familiarly resort to the places to which they have been accustomed.

And because they have been used to slaughter many oxen in the sacrifices to devils, some solemnity must be exchanged for them on this account, as that on the day of the dedication, or the nativities of the holy martyrs, whose relics are there deposited, they may build themselves huts of the boughs of trees, about those churches which have been turned to that use from temples, and celebrate the solemnity with religious feasting, and no more offer beasts to the Devil, but kill cattle to the praise of God in their eating, and return thanks to the Giver of all things for their sustenance; to the end that, whilst some gratifications are outwardly permitted them, they may the more easily consent to the inward consolations of the grace of God. For there is no doubt that it is impossible to efface everything at once from their obdurate minds; because he who endeavours to ascend to the highest place, rises by degrees or steps, and not by leaps.

Augustine and his helpers were not sent on a destructive mission.  They were not sent to wipe the slate clean of anything that had any relation to paganism and start all over.  The were not afraid of paganism, because they were confident that Christ would prevail over it.  They also understood that nothing was so universally human as the love of a good party.  Their parties and places of celebration were to be lovingly and gently Christianised, the good aspects kept and the evil or dangerous ones phased out.

This gentle, inclusive spirit surely also inhabited the Christian adoption of aspects of the Roman festival of Saturnalia into the Christmas celebration.  Saturnalia, the festival of the Roman harvest god Saturn, ran from December 17 to the winter solstice on December 23.  It was a celebration, a time of feasting and gift giving, a holiday in which there were both public and private feasts.  It was also a festival of misrule, in which masters served their slaves, children ruled their parents, and the festival was presided over by a Lord of Misrule whose absurd and chaotic commmands must be obeyed. 

The mid-winter date of Christmas is not a great match for the Gospel stories of Jesus' birth with their shepherds sleeping in the fields and Joseph and Mary travelling cross-country to Bethlehem.  Yet what could be more Christian than an upside down festival like Saturnalia?  How better to celebrate the birth of a king who entered his city on a donkey and died for his people, who took little children on his knee, healed lepers, touched bleeding women, befriended Samaritans and gave it to the chief priests and leaders of Israel with both barrels? 

Wouldn't it be great if we had our own Saturnalia.  We could go and sleep in tents and demountable huts while homeless people and refugees occupied our homes.  We could wait on the tables of the starving.  Our politicians could answer their own phones and open their own letters while their admin staff made decisions of state.  It would be thrilling and dangerous.  Some of the decisions of our misrulers might turn out to be better than those of our regular rulers.  Perhaps we might even make it permanent.

Happy Saturnalia everyone!

More Lives of Jesus 5: The Twin Deception

When I reviewed Philip Pullman's The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ earlier this year, I made the mistake of assuming he had invented the idea of Jesus' twin brother.  I was wrong.  The idea comes from this exceedingly odd book, The Twin Deception, by Tony Bushby, published by the small independent Queensland publisher Joshua Books in 2006.

Bushby is a prolific writer of Christian pseudo-history with at least six similar voumes to his name.  There is a lot of familiar stuff here, including hidden messages, concealed identities and Catholic cover-ups, but Bushby takes the art-form to a whole new level.

I don't mean his writing.  His grammar is questionable, his prose convoluted and his telling of his story is so incoherent as to be almost incomprehensible.  Nonetheless, the extent of his reworking of the tale is beyond anything attempted by the likes of Barbara Theiring, Stephan Huller or even the redoubtable Michael Biagent. 

In summary his story is this.  Jesus had a twin brother, Judas Thomas.  These two boys were the children of the Jewish serving woman Mary and the Roman Emperor Tiberius.  Judas, the elder of the brothers, became the leader of the Essenes, a militant Jewish sect, before travelling to Rome to attempt to take his father's throne by force.  There he was arrested, sentenced to crucifixion but escaped by switching places with Simon of Cyrene.  As a result he lost his freedom, was sold into slavery by his brother Jesus and ended his life in India.

Meanwhile Jesus was initiated into the mysteries of Osiris in Egypt, inherited his brother's position as head of the Essenes but fell out with them because he attempted to reveal their secrets to the common people.  This led to a journey to Britain where he spread his secret to the British Jews before finally being stoned to death in London.

This will of course leave you wondering how the story came to be told as it is in our bibles and of course Bushby has the answer.  Christianity as we know it was invented at the Council of Nicea, called by the Emperor Constantine, a descendant of Jesus.  This was not, as we have been led to believe, a gathering of Christian bishops (there being no such thing at the time) but a gathering of the teachers of a wide range of religions current in the Empire at that time.  Constantine was worried at the divisiveness of multiple religions and wanted to decide on a single faith to unite his empire.  In the end the Council, at Constantine's urging, decided to create a new religion, based around the persons of Constantine's ancestor Jesus and his brother Judas, which combined elements of the cults of Caesar, Krishna, Mithra, Horus and Zeus.  Bishop Eusebius was given the job of creating scriptures to support this religion and the New Testament was the result.

Of course the "true knowledge" of the existence of the twins and the fictitious nature of the Gospels was not completely suppressed.  It was known to the Catholic heirarchy, preserved by the initiates of various secret societies, leaked out in the works of the Renaissance masters and had to be suppressed again with a complete rewriting of the New Testament in the late 15th century. 

It's useful at this point to keep in mind Michael Shermer's criterion for assessing conspiracy theories - the likelihood of a conspiracy theory being true is inversely proportional to the number of people who would have to be involved. The cover-up described by Bushby involves literally millions of people over almost seventeen centuries. Surely someone would have had an attack of consience and released the true story by now?

What evidence does Bushby have for these astonishing claims?  It's difficult to tell.  Most of his sources predate the 20th century.  He cites a number of obscure and out-of-print 18th and 19th century historians, and has a love for 19th century editions of the Encyclopedia Brittanica and Catholic Encyclopedia, from which he quotes extensively.  This means, of course, that most of his sources can't be verified.

Where they can, the result is not encouraging.  Virtually every time he quotes the New Testament he either misquotes it or distorts its meaning.  A classic example is his brief section on "the biblical evidence of Jesus' twin".  He cites the parallel passages in Mark 6 and Matthew 13 which refer to Jesus' brothers, who include "Judas called Thomas", and relates these to the references to the apostle Thomas "the twin" in John's gospel.  The problem is that the Mark and Matthew passages don't mention "Judas called Thomas", merely "Judas" or "Jude", and there is no suggestion that he is Jesus' twin.  Hence the connection with Thomas in John is completely spurious.

Other sources that I could easily check showed the same pattern.  He cites the story of the conflict over Easter in Britain in the 6th century as evidence that the original British church did not celebrate Easter.  Yet the original of this story in Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the English People (which Bushby appears to have only read at second hand) makes it clear that both sides of the dispute celebrated Easter and the source of the conflict was the method of calculating the correct date. 

Bushby goes so far as to cite Geoffrey of Monmouth's fantastical History of the Kings of Britain as if it were a real work of history.  Even then he misquotes it, confusing a passage about the imaginary king Cymbeline, "a powerful warrior whom Augustus Caesar had reared in his household and equipped with weapons" and the following paragraph, "In those days was born our Lord Jesus...", as evidence that Augustus armed Jesus and sent him to Britain.  If this small sample is any indication, none of his citations can be trusted.

He even struggles to get his own story straight.  The Gospel accounts of the crucifixion are described both as inaccurate retellings of Judas Thomas' supposed crucifixion in Rome, and veiled accounts of Jesus' initiation into the Egyptian mysteries.  Jesus is both the son of Tiberius, and armed and dispatched by Augustus.  The Gospels were invented by Eusebius in the 4th century, then again by the church authorities in the 15th.  Bushby is able to both have and eat multiple servings of cake.

So why did I bother with this tedious, badly written nonsense?  And why am I boring you with it?  I have to admit I wondered that myself as I skimmed the latter part of the book searching in vain for something that made sense.

The answer is that these retellings have cultural resonance for 21st century Western readers.  While Bushby is a little too out there even for Dan Brown, The Da Vinci Code used the various common pseudo-historical tricks to turn a second-rate detective novel into a publishing phenomenon.  The religion sections of secular bookstores contain as many works of pseudo-history as they do collections of the Dalai Lama's sayings.  Even Bushby's extreme left-field ideas found an echo in Pullman's decidedly more mainstream treatment of the subject.  Why is this stuff so popular?

Partly, of course, it's fashionable to take pot-shots at the church as Western society grows into its own increasing secularism.  However, these stories also provide the same fascination as a well constructed science fiction or fantasy world.  The boring, hum-drum, incompetent society in which we live conceals another, far more exciting reality in which super-competent, malevolent rulers conspire to deceive ordinary people for their own gain.  The suggestion of historicity in these claims, however flimsy, just adds to the excitement and the thrill of horror.

It's all nonsense, but perhaps there's an upside.  With a bit of luck, Tony Bushby may get to have twice as much fun at Christmas as the rest of us!

Answer on Asylum Seekers

Back in September I wrote to Julia Gillard, Immigration Minister Chris Evans and my local member to express the view that both offshore processing and immigration detention should be abandoned and asylum seekers allowed to live in the community.  Not long after, the High Court ruled that offshore processing is illegal and the Gillard government accidentially arrived at a policy somewhat similar to my suggestions.

Finally, I have a reply to my letter to Chris Bowen from Kate Falvey, Director of Protection Policy in the Department of Immigration and Citizenship.  Some of the things she says are as follows.

You will be pleased to know that on 18 October 2010, the Government announced that it would move the majority of children, and a significant number of vulnerable families, into the community by the end of June 2011, by expanding the community detention program.  This commitment was met.

As at 21 November 2011, the Minister had approved 2382 clients (1266 adults and 1116 children) for accommodating in the community detention program since October 2010.  Of these, 1292 clients (774 adults and 518 children) are residing in the community under these arrangements.  Around 1000 clients have left the program after being granted protection visas.

On 25 November 2011, the Hon Chris Bowen MP, Minister for Immigration and Citizenship, announced a new approach to the management of asylum seekers.  Following an initial mandatory detention period for health, security and identity checks, eligible boat arrivals who do not pose risks to the community will be progressively considered for community placement on bridging visas while their asylum claims are assessed.

Asylum seekers on bridging visas will have the right to work and support themselves, and will also have access to necessary health services.  Some will also be eligible for support services through the existing Department of Immigration and Citizenship funded programs such as the Asylum Seeker Assistance Scheme and the Community Assistance Support Program, which will be determined on a case by case basis.

Astute readers will note the weasel words in this letter - the "majority" of children, a "significant number" of "vulnerable" families (presumably some families are invulnerable), "eligible" boat arrivals will be "progressively considered" for community placement, and "some" will be eligible for support services.  This is a cautious bureaucratic document which leaves a lot of wriggle room.

Nonetheless it's a move in the right direction.  Community detention represents a sort of half-way house, much like parole in the prison system.  The Immigration Fact Sheet on the program says:

Community detention enables people to reside in the community without needing to be escorted. These arrangements do not give a person any lawful status in Australia (for example, no visa is granted at this stage), nor does it give them the rights and entitlements of a person living in the community on a visa (for example, the right to study or work). The person remains administratively in immigration detention while living in the community....Conditions include a mandatory requirement to report regularly to the department and/or their service provider, and reside at the address specified by the minister.

This is problematic because they still remain in limbo, with no way to support themselves and limited opportunity to engage in meaningful activity.  However, at least they have basic freedom of movement and a home environment rather than a traumatic institutional one.

The bridging visa option is a further improvement.  People are allowed to start establishing their lives, to work and become independent.  However, it does provide less security for people - they have to jump through the hoops to be approved for discretionary assistance programs run by the Red Cross (see the fact sheets here and here) and you can be sure many will slip between the cracks.

The letter doesn't mention the High Court decision but it is clear the court has set the cat among the pigeons.  Policy is moving fast, cautious public servants are having to think on their feet, and there is an opportunity for those who are looking for humane solutions to get ahead of those who see only danger.  I'd still like to see more generosity, but at last after years of the zero sum game of detention we seem to be moving in a more generous direction.  May we keep moving forward!

The Art of Persuasion

Still ploughing through my rapidly diminishing pile of periodicals.  Right now I'm reading Zadok Perspectives No 112, Spring 2011, and it includes a lovely lucid article by John Dickson, director of the Centre for Public Christianity and one of Australia's foremost Christian apologists, reprinted from the Sydney Morning Herald. 

Dickson is talking about the very same thing as Michael Shermer, confirmation bias or as Dickson calls it, the "Backfire Effect".  We readily believe evidence which supports our pre-existing views, while contrary evidence not only fails to convince us, it often "backfires" and strengthens our erroneous opinions.

His point is the same as Shermer's - that our beliefs are so rarely dictated by the evidence, and instead we read the evidence with beliefs in hand.  This effect applies equally to Christians and atheists, the those on the left and the right, to those who refuse to see the evidence that there is a real physiological basis for sexual orientation and those who refuse to accept the empirical evidence that Christian belief really does make you a better person.

What hope is there for us, if we are so intractably unreasonable?  Dickson turns to Aristotle's On Rhetoric for an explanation.  Aristotle identified three controlling factors for persuasion.  The first, logos, is about evidence and reason.  According to Aristotle we all like to believe that we believe on the basis of logos, but this is rarely the whole story.  Two other factors are also in play.  Pathos is our emotional reaction to an idea or proposition.  We are more likely to believe an idea or assertion we find pleasant or fitting, less likely to believe one we find repugnant.  The final factor is ethos, the social or ethical dimension to belief.  We accept the ideas of people we like and trust, disbelieve those we dislike or distrust, irrespective of the strength of their evidence. 

What counts in debate is a combination of intellectual, aesthetic and social factors. I find it interesting that Christian believers will very often admit that their convictions emerged in this threefold way; that their faith rests on the holistic basis of logos, pathos and ethos. For Christianity, indeed, satisfies all three dimensions of our existence. But what is especially interesting to me as I reflect on Aristotle and the research on the ''backfire effect'' is the way sceptics rarely admit that their scepticism rests on the same combination of reasons.

Typically, my atheist mates have protested that, for them, it is entirely a matter of evidence. "If there were more proof," they say, "I would readily believe." I don't believe them for a moment.
Yes, evidence is important, but it is not the only factor. I have spoken to too many atheists over the years who start out with a "proof" line of argument only to eventually admit that their reasons for rejecting religion have equally to do with some painful event in the past that called into question God's existence or some ugly encounter with a religious hypocrite that caused them to distrust religious claims. Personal and social factors prove as important as intellectual factors in the formation of belief and unbelief, whether on religious, ethical, political or social matters.

Whether on climate change, politics, religion or ethics, we do not change our minds on the basis of facts alone. Indeed, they may even bolster contrary views. What environmental campaigners, refugee advocates, gay rights lobbyists, atheist evangelists and churches need if they are to be persuasive are not just more facts but a narrative that stirs our hearts and a social movement that wins our trust.