"If God is so obvious then why don't more people...."

You might have noticed that people disagree a great deal about whether or not God is there. Some people are convinced on pretty flimsy reasoning, others seem to be cold to what seems like quite a persuasive case. Have you ever wondered: why doesn’t everyone agree, one way or the other? I happen to think that the evidence for God's existence is excellent, but not all of you will be so convinced, and I'm not naive enough to think that I can come close to convincing you. What kind of an answer can a Christian believer offer to this objection?

Knowledge of God, or knowing things about God, and about whether or not he is there is unique in that it is affected or conditioned by moral and spiritual factors. In some of the gospel records about Jesus we see him talking about people who seemed to be "spiritually blind" or closed minded. In one story he heals a blind man in two stages, this conversation takes place in Mark 8

22 They came to Bethsaida, and some people brought a blind man and begged Jesus to touch him. 23 He took the blind man by the hand and led him outside the village. When he had spit on the man's eyes and put his hands on him, Jesus asked, "Do you see anything?"

24 He looked up and said, "I see people; they look like trees walking around."

25 Once more Jesus put his hands on the man's eyes. Then his eyes were opened, his sight was restored, and he saw everything clearly. 26 Jesus sent him home, saying, "Don't go into the village."

A spiritually indifferent person can have a profound knowledge of physics, or literature, or history, or sociology, or even of theology. But a spiritually indifferent person cannot know God. According to the Bible, the knowledge of God is promised to those who honestly seek him.

Jeremiah: 'And you shall seek me and you shall find me, if you seek for me with all your heart.'

Jesus: 'Seek and you will find, knock and the door shall be opened, ask and it will be given you. For he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it shall be opened, and to him who asks it shall be given.'

We should be willing to acknowledge that it is possible that we are not in an appropriate moral or cognitive position to be able to handle knowledge about, and of God’s existence reliably. That isn't to say that we throw evidence, rationality, and reasoning carefully out of the window - and just revert to telling people the 'simple gospel', not at all. Don't forget what a high view of the mind, and thinking Paul had - his approach could be summarised as 'reasoning, persuading, loving'. So don't chuck your brains out of the window, or expect others to do the same.

God is after all – a very special kind of agent – with distinctive purposes, not a household object or a laboratory specimen.

We humans can not easily abide a gracious being who evades our self-approving cognitive nets

Dawkins is right to admit that we don’t have proof for very much in life; And perhaps when it comes to God we can sometimes demand an unreasonable amount of proof as a way of hiding from really engaging with the discussion; or subject matter in hand.

I want to say that we should become more loving in the way we handle the evidence for God’s existence. God is not a philosophical object, and knowledge of him is not a spectator sport.

We might manifest dangerous arrogance in assuming that we can have proper knowledge of God without undergoing profound transformation. In genuine cases of knowledge of God, knowers must be transformed to become like the known in character.

I wonder how much freedom, we would have, when it comes to knowing God, or not knowing God, if things weren't set up like this? What do you think?

Good Films are Necessarily Religious

Let me unpack the title a little...

1. Religion is more than talking about God and theology

Many people think that Christian religion is all about trying to be good. Religion is all about keeping the rules: don’t lie, don’t swear, try not to murder people.

The problem with this narrow view of religion - that religion is doing kind things like helping old ladies over the road - is that it is incompatible with Jesus’ teaching. The Pharisees were good at being religious, but Jesus wasn’t very impressed with this.

When it comes to being good, Jesus has a deeper understanding of what goodness is, and he seems to think that it concerns the whole of life, not just old ladies, and not just the way we think, or what we might believe about God and theology

Jesus also teaches about worship, explaining that it is more than singing songs. To be a true worshipper is to work, rest and play in God’s presence, thanking him for good things and asking him to help you with the tough stuff.

“ ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’; and, ‘Love your neighbour as yourself.’” (Luke 10:27)

So, religion, as Jesus sees it, isn’t just about having the belief that God is there, and that he loves you. That’s great, but Jesus invites us to have a real, living, transforming relationship with him, and this changes everything.

Everything is part of our spiritual lives, a living breathing religious life, except things that harm us. So take for example, your favourite thing to eat, or love, or thinking really carefully, or doing really well at sport – these things are all really spiritual, they are part of real worship, they are part of real religion, they are things God created, and he loves them, as long as we don’t make them more important than him, or harm anyone.

2. Film deals with big themes, issues, questions

The most entertaining, enjoyable films are more than clever combinations of CGI and stunts. They have great stories, characters and scripts, and perhaps a twist or two to keep you guessing. Films that develop characters, that allow you to get to know those characters, are the films that tend to stay with us.

Brian Godawa, screenwriter for the film To End All Wars, believes that the drawing power of a good film is its story. Although films often have very different stories Godawa explains that,

'[good stories] narrate the events surrounding characters who overcome obstacles to achieve some goal and who, in the process, are confronted with their personal need for change. In short, movie storytelling is about redemption - the recovery of something lost or the attainment of something needed… Movies may be about story, but these stories are finally, centrally, crucially, primarily, mostly about redemption.'

If Godawa is right, the movies that really connect with us are the ones which offer some form of redemption. The theme of redemption is undeniably a rich one in the Matrix films, and the search for redemption is inextricably intertwined with the course of love.

As well as looking at the redemptive journeys of various characters films also deal with big themes: Moral; Political; Sexual; Happiness; Freedom; Love; Spirituality; Truth; Belief; Human nature; Purpose; Identity; Loss and Suffering.

Films can often act like a mirror, as we watch, we can recognise what we are like, and what other people are like. This can make us uncomfortable, because we can sometimes see that human nature is quite messed up. But it can also make us happy, when we see something that we like.

3. You can't make a really good film, without getting religious

Big themes, and big questions are found in films and in the kind of religion that Jesus talks about. Jesus and films are interested in the big themes and ideas: Love; Identity; Happiness; Freedom; Truth etc.

Also, ponder this: the power with which we are drawn towards aesthetic beauty (say in a well crafted film) also needs an explanation. Does it fit in better with the explanation that our existence, and hunger for aesthetic beauty is an accidental miasma in a blind, unguided process driven simply by the reproduction of genetic material, or does this situation rest more snugly with the Christian belief that we were created to know and worship God who is the source of all beauty?

Some of our deepest, and most real enjoyment of film, comes because we are interested in big themes and big questions

This article is drawn from a lecture/talk that includes lots of film clips. If you'd like to use it, or would like to talk to me about presenting it, or just want to dig deeper into these big questions, then please get in touch via this link

How to Make Gravy

It might seem like a slightly different direction to take, than what I usually blog about, but perhaps if all of life is spiritual, then why should good gravy be low down on our list of priorities? Or perhaps we could go with the gift of hospitality (def. giving your guest the ability to be free to exercise their will in your home), and doing the best you can for them. Excuses aside, it really is a subject that is important to me. I don't entirely know why, but it is. And you should never, ever, ever, ever settle for instant gravy. If you do, you must change your ways immediately. No more crimes against gravy. I love roasts, partly because I love roast potatoes covered in this lovely tasty gravy.

Instructions for making seriously good gravy (enough for about 5 people)

Plain flour

Beef/Chicken/Pork stock

Veg stock

Marmite

Sherry/port (white wine for chicken)

Salt&Pepper

1. Tip the baking tray up and either use a spoon to skim off the fatty top layer, or use a Gravy and Fat Separator
2. Then pour all those lovely meat juices into a saucepan (if you don't have any juices, then just add roughly 100ml of meat stock made from cubes or liquid) on a low heat setting
3. Sprinkle 3-4 tablespoons of plain flour while stirring (don't worry if it gets lumpy - just strain it through a sieve before you serve it - no big deal) until the meat juices have all been absorbed into the flour
4. Next slowly add 200ml of meat stock, giving it a good stir
5. Increase heat to medium
6. Take the meat out of the baking tray, and leave it to rest, while you pour a generous dash of port or sherry (white wine if chicken) into the baking tin, and give it a good rub with a wooden spoon. The alcohol and heat will dissolve all those tasty meaty juices. N.B. you can even put the tray on the hob and do the rest in the tray if you like - in that case, sieve the flour straight into the tray, and follow from step 4. I like to separate the excess fat from the meat juices.
7. Next add 200 ml of hot vegetable stock (try to use water from the vegetables) to the meat roasting dish, and pour the glorious mixture into a saucepan.
8. Stir in a stingy teaspoon of Marmite/Vegemite
9. Taste
10. Salt and pepper (pinch of sugar?)
11. Taste
12. Add any remaining meat juices (removing fat as appropriate)
13. A dash of port/sherry
14. Taste and enjoy

Other twists include Heston Blumenthal's advice, "To make the best gravy, you may have to buy some chicken wings, but they're not that expensive. Put them in the pan with the roasting juices and some white wine. Cook that down, then add some water. Make sure you've got enough sweet veg, like carrots, and onions particularly."

And here is is Jamie Oliver's recipe

Loving Logical Faith

Faith loves logic. And logic is in love with faith. They are not getting a divorce. They have not split up. Logic has not crashed the car. Faith still wants logic. They are deeply, intimately, passionately in love with each other.

Logic is not the enemy of faith. Logic is like air. We are using it now. The logical is not the unemotional. Logic is not the same as science. Science isn't the enemy of faith. Real faith loves logic.

Why does faith love logic?

Simply because real, authentic faith cares about real things like integrity, and honesty. And it would be pretty odd for a faith to extol these virtues, but require the opposite of them for its initial impulse or conception.

Most people think that faith like a room in the house where logic isn't allowed to come in and sit on the sofa. They don't ever realise that without logic, there is no room, there is no reality, there is no perception, there are no distinctions. Logic is like air. Unavoidable.

Have you ever heard a Christian telling you that faith doesn't make sense, and shouldn't make sense to us?

I have heard a lot of people saying this. In fact, I have heard so many Christians saying it, that I've begun to become concerned that someone is teaching it.

Is someone teaching that logic and faith are getting a divorce?

Yes. Some are. Shame on them. They couldn't be more wrong. But not only are some preachers, vicars and teachers teaching that faith isn't rationally accessible, but also because they don't engage with the mental machinery, in their communication with us, they are teaching it by example as well. It's a double whammy.

Go on preachers. Give something to the sceptics. Give something to the man who sits in the back row wondering, "Isn't this all just emotional make believe?" Give a little something up for the love. The love affair between logic and faith.

If this is the case then how can the truth about the love affair between logic and faith ever be known?

Dig deeper

Critical Thinking

What is faith?

Jesus the logician

Tom Waits Press Conference

The Teens Speech

Digging Up 'Bodies' with Robbie Williams

Robbie Williams said that part of the inspiration for his song "bodies" was a free internet film called 'The God Who Wasn't There' (http://www.thegodmovie.com/)



Williams says, "It was a song written on a particular day where I’d spent too much time on the Internet watching free films, and I watched a film, The God Who Wasn’t There. And it gives a different slant to Christianity and religion in general...With just a little bit of research, it turns out that the template for Christianity has been used before Jesus was about. There’s always been this guy about, who was born to a virgin, that was crucified, died and then resurrected, did a bunch of miracles. And it perked my interest and it gave me a different slant on my own religious beliefs and my Catholic upbringing...The whole song in general is about me spending too much time looking and reading about conspiracies. Googling too much. The song’s a whole mismatch of Google wrongness...I love my conspiracies. I love news. I love anything that takes my mind off my mind. I’m very addictive ... and so it has been for the last five years. I’m a Net-head. I’m there all the time." (canoe)


Bodies lyrics

Although I think Robbie Williams admits that these theories are more conspiracy than history. It is worth isolating some of the arguments that are being used. Some of them are quite subtle.

I spotted the following just in the trailer

1. Religious believers are fanatical/dangerous/killers.
2. Historical scrutiny of the first couple of decades (30-50 A.D.) don't support the New Testament portrait of Jesus.
3. Mark's gospel is not an accurate picture of the historical Jesus.
4. Mark didn't intend his gospel to be more than a symbolic story
5. A gospel is a symbolic story
6. The stories in the New Testament are legends
7. The key concepts in Christian belief are borrowed and are therefore not original, or inspired
8. Christian's (Christianity) ignores these sorts of historical challenges