Confessing Evangelical

There are lots of reports this morning about the study suggesting that women athletes may be out-sprinting men by the 2156 Olympics. I was pretty sceptical anyway, given that the prediction was made by extrapolating rates of improvement over the past 40 years - on the same, rigorous scientific basis, I predict that our sons will be approximately 150 feet tall by the same date - but what really sealed it for me was discovering that the story was based on a study "published in the journal Nature".

When my sister started her degree in physiology, the lecturers went out of their way to warn students that Nature has something of a reputation for publishing eye-catching and media-friendly studies that are scientific hogwash. (I particularly treasure the memory of a Channel 4 News bulletin from around ten years ago, in which the lead item was the discovery of the "happy gene" and "sad gene", illustrated respectively by a smiley face and a frowny face. That was based on a "study published in the leading scientific journal Nature", as I recall).

So I have to admit it was with those thoughts still fresh in my mind that I came upon this report about a study published in the same issue of Nature as the sprinting story. A team of researchers at MIT have used computer modelling techniques to demonstrate that the human race's most recent common ancestor may have lived only a few thousand years ago. Tracking back further, they found a time when "a large fraction of people in the world [shall we say, eight persons?] were the common ancestors of everybody alive today - while the rest were ancestors of no one alive". That date was 5,353 BC.

That the human race has descended from a common ancestry dating back only a few thousand years is, of course, precisely what the Bible teaches (namely, that we are all descended from Noah - the other descendants of Adam at that time having perished in the Flood).

There is a need for caution here, of course. It is always a slightly unedifying sight to see Christians scrabbling around for fragments of scientific evidence that "prove" what the Bible says, and this study is far from providing scientific verification for the Noah account. And let us not forget that the story is taken from "a study published in the leading scientific journal Nature". Also, the study suggests the common ancestors in question may have lived in eastern Asia, which implies that people hunting for Mt Ararat and the remains of the Ark need to have a serious rethink about their target locations (though perhaps it means that Angkor Wat, rather than Babylonian ziggurats, is the true model for the Tower of Babel). :-)

But at the very least this goes some way to refuting the general assumption that it is inherently absurd to believe the biblical account of common descent of all people within a few thousand years.

Congratulations to Michael Rogers of Australia, who has successfully defended his World Championship time-trial title.

Rogers had quite an incentive to do so: he was only awarded the title about three weeks ago, after British cyclist David Millar, who won on the day last year, was subsequently disqualified after admitting to using the banned performance-enhancing substance EPO. Consequently, Rogers didn't officially receive his gold medal and rainbow jersey (which the World Champion is entitled to wear throughout the year following his victory) until this morning.

So had he lost today, he'd have been in actual possession of the rainbow jersey - one of the most coveted prizes in cycling - for about 6 hours. Which would have been a bit rough on the poor guy. But now he's won it in his own right, fair and square, and gets to keep the jersey for a whole year - it'll be worth cutting the label out now, throwing away the receipt and everything...

The Pontificator has posted a quote from David Mills (editor of Touchstone) who describes sitting for several days in "a discussion about divorce and remarriage with 12 Anglican-Evangelicals - all learned, all biblically conservative, all holding more or less the same hermeneutic - who came to nine different and to some extent deeply opposed positions", and goes on to point out that:

Once upon a time, all Evangelicals held that divorce and "remarriage" were virtually unthinkable. But this minimalism, I suddenly realized, was now one of the principles of the Church to which I belonged, as held by its finest servants. They would only hold as authoritative what they agreed Scripture said, and they were agreeing less and less.

This is a very telling point, in which Mills puts his finger squarely on the tendency to say that issues on which "evangelicals" disagree don't really matter. A striking example of this pluralistic approach can be found in John Stott's book, Evangelical Truth, in which he asks how we can distinguish "evangelical essentials which cannot be compromised and those adiaphora ... on which, being of secondary importance, it is not necessary for us to insist". Stott writes:

Perhaps our criterion for deciding which is which, a truly evangelical principle because it concerns the supremacy of Scripture, should be as follows. Whenever equally biblical Christians, who are equally anxious to understand the teaching of Scripture and to submit to its authority, reach different conclusions, we should deduce that evidently Scripture is not crystal clear in this matter, and therefore we can afford to give one another liberty. (emphasis added)

Stott goes on to list twelve areas which, in his view, meet these criteria: (1) Baptism; (2) the Lord's Supper; (3) church government; (4) worship (liturgy vs extempore); (5) charismata; (6) women in ministry; (7) ecumenism (involvement with non-evangelical churches); (8) the fulfilment of Old Testament prophecy; (9) sanctification; (10) church & state issues; (11) the nature of mission; (12) eschatology. He adds:

This list could be considerably extended. It should include all doctrines and practices in which there is a sincere disagreement among evangelical believers about what the Bible teaches or implies.

Which is, of course, exactly what David Mills was saying when he observed that his evangelical friends "would only hold as authoritative what they agreed Scripture said, and they were agreeing less and less".

Now, I shudder at my own presumption in criticising so great and venerable a saint as John Stott. But there are some obvious difficulties with this approach. For starters, most evangelicals would probably disagree with the inclusion on that list of at least some of those items (I mean, since when were Baptism and the Lord's Supper "adiaphora"? Was I at that meeting?).

And it opens the floodgates to ideas which Stott most certainly would not welcome. Clark Pinnock would strongly contend that he is a "biblical Christian ... anxious to understand the teaching of Scripture and submit to its authority". So presumably, therefore, we have to conclude that Scripture is not "crystal clear" in the matter of Open Theism. No doubt justification by faith and substitutionary atonement will soon need to be added to the list of unclear, inessential teachings on which evangelicals may legitimately differ. What next? The Trinity? The Incarnation?

Sadly, if this principle is adopted, the likely outcome is the complete evacuation of any remaining doctrinal content or meaning in the word "evangelical".

This approach is also flawed in that it places all error, by definition, "over there", among the evil "non-evangelicals". The biblical warnings to be on our guard against false teachers arising among us thus have their impact greatly reduced. False teachers = liberals and revisionists; different views among evangelicals = legitimate, healthy diversity. False teaching is what Rowan Williams does, not what Clark Pinnock does.

But the real problem is that Stott (and others following the same approach) is trying to answer the question, "How much doctrinal error is acceptable? At what point do we say that doctrinal error has gone 'too far'?" The answer is that no doctrinal error is "acceptable"; though that's not the same thing as saying that all doctrinal error is inherently damnable. Once again, this is a centred set in which the only safe point to be is at the centre.

The tendency identified by Mills and exemplified by Stott illustrates the tensions firstly between "sola Scriptura" and the question of how we can be sure our interpretation of the Bible is correct and hence authorative, and secondly between the role of the church and the role of individual Christians in interpreting the Bible. However, unlike Mills, I'm not at all convinced that the answers to these problems are found in Roman Catholicism. It's all very well having one, clear, authoritative answer to any given doctrinal question, but what if that answer is wrong?

I'm always troubled when Roman Catholic or Eastern Orthodox Christians tell us that we are to let the church interpret Scripture in an authoritative, and indeed infallible, manner (nor do I think it is necessary for the church to be infallible in order for it to be "a pillar and buttress of truth"). It is not just rampant individualism, anti-traditionalism and private judgment gone mad that makes Protestant Christians say that these two communions have misinterpreted Scripture on issues such as justification by faith. Between individualism and ecclesial infallibility lies a third approach, that of confessionalism, which I will look at in more detail in my next post on this topic.

Couple of minor tweaks - addition of a Bloglines subscribe button, some links added/removed. The Google box is gone, since Blogger now provides a Google site search using the bar at the top of the page.

The main change is that, after nine months, I've finally decided to stop being such a control freak and let people decide for themselves whether to open links in a new window (which, as I'm sure you're all aware, you can do by holding "Shift" as you click the link). This is once I realised that even I was finding it profoundly irritating to have windows popping open all over the place. If anyone passionately misses this "feature", please say so in the comments...

Update: I've also added Mr & Mrs Olson to the blogroll. This is in recognition of the Terrible Swede's much less terrible language in recent months, thus qualifying him for my strictly PG-12 blogroll. :-)

One for Daniel... The Onion's infographic on events at this year's Oktoberfest, "Germany's annual celebration of beer and Bavarian culture". I particularly enjoyed the idea of "a pictorial celebration of German culture, 1740-1914, 1950-present".

"Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven." - Matt. 18:3

"Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven." - Matt. 19:14

These verses have been the subject of lively discussion at many times in the past 2,000 years. What qualities of children is Jesus identifying as essential to those who would enter the kingdom of heaven (humility? unconditional trust? helplessness and dependence?)? How should these verses be applied to Holy Baptism? (That last one ought to be a no-brainer).

My conclusion is that it is best to link these verses with the concept popularised by some evangelical writers (Bill Hybels?) of "contagious Christians". Yes, whatever your children have, you catch soon enough - a model to us all of fervent and winsome personal evangelism.

For the moment, however, what my children have enabled me to catch off them is a stomach bug. Blogging is therefore on a slight hiatus pending (hopefully rapid) recovery.

On a slightly more serious note, our youngest (9 months) actually spent the night in hospital last night, just as a precaution given that he is so young. Latest news from the front is that he has bounced back quite quickly and is now back to his usual self (i.e. cute, winsome and lively - he spent the night pulling various drips and tubes off himself...). He and my wife (who has also gone down with the same bug! Cheers, kids!) are due back shortly. We're all basically fine, but prayers for a full recovery would be welcome.

OK, hands up - who else has had Moonshadow rattling round their brain on a five-second tape loop for the past few days? I'm just grateful to Daniel "Lollard" Stoddart for reassuring me that I'm not alone.

Still, could be worse - could be "Morning Has Broken" (Noooooo! I just set it going in my head!).

And could someone please explain to me what danger Cat Stevens!!! poses to the United States of America. I mean, since he retired from singing.

Apparently the link to the Political Compass site in my earlier post isn't working - hopefully this one should work.

Update: original link should now work. Forgot the "http://", again. :-)

In my previous post, I described how my score on the Political Compass, while remaining more-or-less central on the "Libertarian/Authoritarian" axis, has moved sharply to the right in the past few years. What has caused this shift in position? Is it just that my father was right, and that as soon as I was living in the real world and paying taxes, I'd quickly grow out of this left-wing socialist nonsense?

Well, in reality there have always been at least two or three political viewpoints jostling for position in my head, and I'm grateful to Chris Atwood for clarifying the terminology for these in the comments to my post on the politics of cycling (note: I don't know if these are the "proper" definitions of Whig and Tory, but they are the definitions which apply in the rest of this post):

• "Whig": "the viewpoint shaped by market economics, constant growth, and a society of upwardly mobile nuclear families", as Chris put it. In the UK, this tends to be referred to (usually pejoratively) as "Thatcherism", though as a political and economic philosophy it long pre-dates Margaret Thatcher's term as Prime Minister.
  


• "Tory": the "small-c conservative" position, which seeks to respect tradition (in the GK Chesterton sense of "the democracy of the dead"), at least in the sense of giving tradition the benefit of the doubt and putting the burden of proof firmly on those who would overturn it (as opposed to being mindlessly reactionary).
  


• "Social democrat"/"democratic socialist": in the past, I would have tended to apply the latter term to myself rather than the former, but really they are two points on much the same spectrum. This spectrum ranges from desiring to see Government ownership and control only of key public services (health, education, transport), though with "tough" regulations to ensure "responsible" behaviour by private-sector businesses, to the full-blown, nationalise-the-top-250-companies socialism of Labour's 1983 election manifesto ("the longest suicide note in history", as one MP on Labour's right wing subsequently described it).
  

The picture is complicated by the fact that, in the UK, the "Whig" and "Tory" positions are now largely represented by a single political party, the Conservative Party, whose nickname is "the Tories". So if you're a Whig, that means you're probably a Tory, and vice versa. You follow?

But as I say, over the years all three of these viewpoints have waxed and waned in various degrees. For example, even at my most left-wing (I'm a former member of the Christian Socialist Movement), my Achilles heel was always private/selective education. I went to an independent (i.e. private) grammar school, and while I wouldn't say I was ecstatically happy there, on balance I almost certainly did a lot better (both educationally and as a human being) than I would have done in my local comprehensive school (state grammar schools having long-since been abolished in Leeds, where I grew up).

Any ideological opposition to private/selective education was always tempered, therefore, by three things (i) the awareness that to abolish private schools and state grammar schools would mean abolishing the most consistently excellent sectors of the UK education system; (ii) a reluctance to take a position which amounted to saying "Haul up the ladder, Jack's on board", by denying others the educational choices from which I'd benefitted myself; and (iii) an unwillingness to display rank ingratitude to my parents, who made considerable sacrifices to pay for my education. In other words, a combination of Whiggery (private and state-selective education are of a high quality, and encourage economic prosperity and social mobility) and Toryism (respect for my parents, a desire not to see the abolition of schools with hundreds of years of history behind them).

At present, my "social democrat" tendency is in almost total eclipse, leaving Whiggery and Toryism to fight it out amongst themselves (complicated also by a continuing element of scepticism and distaste for the Conservative Party). There are various reasons for this eclipse: general disillusionment with the Labour government (who have been fire-hosing money at the public sector, without much visible benefit); a greater awareness (through my job) of the environment in which businesses operate and the manner in which they make decisions (and the impact that excessive taxation and regulation have on this); and parenthood, which has given a higher priority to issues, such as education, on which I've always been a bit "right-wing".

One minor, but symbolic, issue was the absurdity of becoming a higher-rate taxpayer (thanks largely to the "fiscal drag" which has led to millions of additional people becoming higher-rate taxpayers since 1997) while at the same time receiving means-tested state benefits (disguised as the "Children's Tax Credit"). This process was aptly described by one commentator as being like pumping water round a leaking pipe.

Becoming more theologically conservative over the past five years probably also played a role.

So where does all that leave me? On a practical level, who will I vote for at the next General Election (probably in spring next year)? I'll consider those questions in my next post, probably next week. It's maybe not quite so obvious as those of you thinking "Tory w*nk*r" as you read this might imagine...

Brian has an interesting link to the World's Smallest Political Quiz. Taking it just now, I ended up firmly in the "Centrist" camp:

Centrists favor selective government intervention and emphasize what they commonly describe as "practical solutions" to current problems. They tend to keep an open mind on political issues. Many centrists feel that government serves as a check on excessive liberty.

I can live with that description, though the accompanying chart showed me edging very slightly in the direction of "Right/Conservative" and even (ye gods!) "Libertarian".

A fuller political self-test can be found at The Political Compass (update: link now fixed), which has about six pages of questions which it then uses to plot your political position on two axes, Left/Right and Libertarian/Authoritarian. When I first took this test around three years ago, I scored about -3 or -4 on the Left/Right axis (i.e. well to the left of centre), and about -1 or -2 on the Libertarian/Authoritarian axis (all scores are out of ten). By yesterday, this had changed to +3.75 Left/Right, -0.05 Libertarian/Authoritarian - which seems pretty consistent with the WSPQ result.

It's worth comparing this with the Political Compass site's estimated plots of UK political parties' positions on the compass, and of US presidential candidates' positions (the British/European perspective of the Political Compass can probably be seen in the fact that both Kerry and Bush are depicted as being some way to the right of centre).

It will be seen from the US chart that, in American terms, I've moved from Ralph Nader territory to somewhere between Bush and Kerry, though slightly more "libertarian" than either of them - similar to my position relative to New Labour and the Conservatives, in the UK chart. Mind you, it's easy for a "civilian" to be more libertarian than an elected politician, given that (i) I don't have to "appeal" to the law'n'order vote, and (ii) I can oppose ID cards without having to be the one who ends up being blamed for the next terrorist atrocity (or House of Commons security bungle).

I'd be interested to know how other people score on both the WSPQ and the Political Compass, and whether you feel those results accurately reflect your views. Do leave any feedback in the comments section. In my next post, I'll try to explain my own "lurch to the right".

More bad news for professional cycling: US rider (and former USPS team-mate of Lance Armstrong) Tyler Hamilton fails two blood tests. He could be stripped of his Olympic time-trial gold medal. Particularly sad given that he seems by all accounts to be a likeable, popular and respected sportsman.

"On a lighter note", Tyler's wife is called Haven Hamilton, which is entertaining for anyone who's watched Robert Altman's film Nashville (see fourth picture down on the RHS of the linked page).

Oh well, let's hope the "B" tests clear Tyler.

This is just magnificent. From an article by Uwe Siemon-Netto on Revd McCain's blog, about political disaffection in the former East Germany:

As a result of 56 years of first, national socialism and then communism, a new sub-species has evolved in substantial numbers in Eastern Germany. They are called, "dumpfes Anspruchsproletariat" - or "morose entitlement proletarians".

"Morose entitlement proletarians"! What a great phrase! It certainly knocks "chav" into a cocked (Burberry) hat...

(Note for US readers: "chav" is a word that has recently exploded into popular usage in the UK in a matter of weeks to describe what the Sunday Telegraph called "the non-respectable working classes". Classic chav fashion items include Adidas sportswear, white trainers, chunky imitation-gold jewellery and, quintessentially, the Burberry check cap. The nearest US equivalent term is probably "white trash").

I enjoyed this Guardian leader column in praise of cycling, following the recent Tour of Britain:

Taken literally, there are few more worth-while instructions than "Get on your bike", if you want good health, an enjoyable hobby and a quick, pollution-free way of nipping about. It is a shame that the phrase was ever purloined as a brusquer way of saying "hop it"...

The writer refers to the increasing popularity of cycling, referring to a recent opinion poll which found that, in some parts of the country, "80% of young people would rather go cycling than play football". While part of cycling's appeal is the success of British cyclists at the Olympics, and part is down to the "welcome coolness to modern bikes, with slender graphite frames and ... staggering number of gears", the Guardian also praises the modern bicycle as "wonderfully inclusive" (well, it would, wouldn't it?):

It has always been difficult to be bad at cycling. Nowadays it is impossible. By selecting the lowest click in the lowest twist of the lowest register, the most sportingly inept of us can sail uphill. There will always be a place for the medal winners and the aces at team sports. But it is grand to see a return to the tradition of the socialist riders of the Clarion Cycling Club, who genuinely wanted sport and good health for all.

Those references to cycling's "inclusiveness" and its socialist credentials called to mind the comment by Tim Hilton in his recent memoir on cycling in the 1950s and 60s, One More Kilometre and We're in the Showers, in which he asserts that:

Cycling is not a political sport, but it does belong to the leftward side of humanity.

It intrigues me that cars are seen (by people at all points of the political spectrum) as a right-wing or conservative form of transport, while cycling is seen as more left-wing. After all, cars can be seen as one of the biggest drivers (geddit?!?) of Big Government, with the need they create for vast, state-funded road networks, stringent safety regulations, and complex traffic laws. And few inventions have done more than the motor-car to erode traditional patterns of life, damage historic landscapes and towns, and promote the dissolution of those ties of family and place which are supposedly valued by conservatives.

On the other hand, it's hard to think of a better advertisement than the bicycle for the values of self-reliance, personal freedom, and taking responsibility for one's own actions, which is probably why Norman Tebbit notoriously told the unemployed in the 1980s to "get on their bikes". The state can't pedal your bike for you. You just get on your bike (which you've purchased using whatever's left from your hard-earned salary after the government has expropriated its share), put on your optional, non-mandatory helmet and set off where you want to go. No licence, no registration, no compulsory insurance, no speed limit. Few laws other than those which are necessary to protect other people from harm. Surely the bicycle is the ultimate conservative vehicle, which is perhaps why Boris Johnson is so keen on cycling.

Indeed, in a (slightly absurd) speech that John Major gave when he was (a slightly absurd) Prime Minister, one of the images he sought to evoke of conservative England (along with warm beer and village cricket) was "old maids cycling to Holy Communion through the morning mist". But perhaps the fact that Major should have echoed George Orwell (who referred in his essay The Lion and the Unicorn to "old maids biking to Holy Communion through the mists of the autumn mornings") is just evidence of the bicycle's ability to transcend such mere political distinctions. After all, you won't get far on a bike unless it has both a left and a right pedal... :-)

Another day, another unhelpful remark from Dr Rowan Williams, another superb response... This time, Christopher Howse devotes his regular "Sacred Space" column in the Daily Telegraph to Dr Williams' recent comments that unrepentant Muslims can go to heaven ("I say this as someone who is quite happy to say that Jesus is the way, the truth and the life, and no one comes to the Father except by Jesus. But how God leads people through Jesus to heaven, that can be quite varied, I think" - ah, the joys of forced interpretations of out-of-context Bible verses).

In his article, entitled "Getting out of hell isn't easy", Howse writes:

I suppose it would have caused more controversy if [Williams] had said they were all going to hell, the only alternative destination. It is funny how quite secular people, while placid about the idea of heaven and not much feeling the need to do what God asks, nevertheless become quite indignant at the idea that they of all people should go to hell.

Howse goes on to quote Eamon Duffy's new book, Faith of our Fathers:

"The thought of losing God should make our flesh crawl, our souls turn sour. It mostly doesn't, however, and that is why the tradition has piled on the agony, why the flames and flesh-hooks have been imagined, just to get across to us how devastating, how agonising, such a loss would be."

Howse continues:

I used to assume, as perhaps most people do, that in the Middle Ages everyone went in great fear of hell, painted as it was on their church walls or by their parsons' sermons. Dr Duffy's extraordinary book, The Stripping of the Altars, convinced me that the ordinary Englishman of the 15th century lived in confident hope of heaven, as long as he pursued his religious duties and avoided deadly sins. He remained anxious to avoid the pains of purgatory, through prayers and good works.

Howse goes on to refer to Christ's "hellish experience" on the cross, expressed in the cry, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?", and how this affects our view both of hell and of how to escape it:

...when the sinless one takes the effects of sin upon himself, and the immortal one undergoes death, then the Psalm (22) that begins "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" can be finished with its: "All the ends of the world shall remember and turn unto the Lord." The transition is not made easily or comfortably, nor merely by saying a word.

If God does not let any particular person go to hell, it is not because he is too feeble to allow it, rather that he has gone to hell and back to prevent it.

"I know of no other God except the one called Jesus Christ."
- Martin Luther

Superb post from Fr Al Kimel, on the question of whether Christians and Muslims worship the same God (as asserted in a recent lecture by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams):

Archbishop Williams' lecture presumes that Christians and Muslims worship the same God and therefore mean the same thing when they talk about the divine infinity, transcendence, aseity and self-existence. Muslims need not, therefore, regard us as idolaters, despite all of that trinitarian talk about the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit. But when we Christians and Muslims describe God as infinite or transcendent, do we in fact mean the same thing?

What is missing in all of this is the man Jesus. We assume that we already know who and what God is, but that we know him just a bit better if we know Jesus. But the doctrine of the Holy Trinity wants to say much more than this. It wants to say that Jesus is himself constitutive of deity.

Each Person of the Trinity can only be understood by us in relation to Jesus Christ:

Father ... is not a metaphor projected by humanity upon the Godhead; it is a proper name and title that designates the divine person who eternally begets Jesus the Son and with whom Jesus exists in eternal relationship...

...we cannot speak about the second person of the Holy Trinity as if he had never become incarnate - born of Mary, crucified under Pontius Pilate, raised on the third day, exalted to God's right hand ... The logos asarkos is a theoretical construct. All we truly know is the Word made flesh...

...Jesus is the eternal Son of the Father; God is the divine Father of this Jesus; the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of their relationship. And together, in mutually defining relationship and perichoretic union, they are the one God...

This means we cannot have an abstract "doctrine of God" which exists separately from the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ:

The narrative of Jesus Christ interprets deity. If this is true, then all of those big words that we use about God - infinity, transcendence, omnipotence, omniscience, omnipresence, aseity, self-existence - must themselves be reinterpreted through this narrative. At no point are we allowed to retreat to a stance of philosophical speculation that ignores the revealed truth that God is Triune.

And this means that, in our dealings with those of other religions, we can never get round the "stone of stumbling and rock of offence" that is the incarnate Son of God, "perfect God and perfect man, of a reasonable soul and human flesh subsisting":

We will always be seen by Islam as idolaters, because we worship Jesus Christ, the incarnate Son, and declare that he is "of one substance" with the Father. No amount of philosophical wheeling-dealing can reduce the offence of the doctrine of the Holy Trinity. Indeed, if we ever find that our trinitarian proclamation ceases to offend those of unitarian faith, it will mean that we have abandoned the gospel.

So, do Christians and Muslims worship the same God, or not? Fr Kimel gives what is probably the best answer I've come across to this question:

The answer, I suppose, is still yes; but perhaps we must also simultaneously answer no. I'll give St John [of Damascus], who was scandalized by the Islamic rejection of the Holy Trinity [unlike, one might add, Dr Williams, who seems more concerned to reassure Muslims that our beliefs are really not all that different from theirs], the final word: "Therefore you accuse us falsely by calling us Associators; we, however, call you Mutilators of God."

I'm not a regular reader of Andrew Sullivan's blog, but I loved this heart-rending John Updike poem, posted by Sullivan in memory of a beagle he rescued, found a home for, and who has recently died. Warning: do not read if you love dogs, are feeling emotionally vulnerable, and are in a location where breaking down in floods of tears would be embarrassing (sitting here at my desk in an open-plan office, my lower lip was getting chewed quite vigorously in places as I read).

It called to mind Byron's epitaph to his dog, Boatswain:

Near this spot
Are deposited the Remains of one
Who possessed Beauty without Vanity,
Strength without Insolence,
Courage without Ferocity,
And all the Virtues of Man without his Vices.
This Praise, which would be unmeaning Flattery
If inscribed over human ashes,
Is but a just tribute to the Memory of
BOATSWAIN, a Dog,
Who was born at Newfoundland, May, 1803,
And died at Newstead Abbey, Nov. 18, 1808.
What stands out is the capital "D" in the words "Boatswain, a Dog", which brings out the dignity, solemnity and nobility of the word - and the animal. Because they're friendly and sociable, and willing to make fools of themselves out of their love for us, it's so easy to trivialise dogs, and so unfair.

Also from Andrew Sullivan: having been experiencing a mild case of "blogger's block" since returning from holiday last week, it was encouraging to see that I'm in good company.

On Saturday, I picked up a copy of Helmut Thielicke's book, I Believe, a series of sermons on the Apostles' Creed (which Thielicke describes as "possibly the most shocking and offensive form in which [the Gospel] has been formulated"). In the introduction, Thielicke writes on the limitations of discussions about the Gospel as distinct from proclamation of the Gospel (a subject on which I have written before). Thielicke points out that all too often, discussions merely spawn further discussions, and so the circle continues. In contrast:

If one examines the conversations of Jesus, one will note that they always end in an arrest, in a sudden termination of the circular. Without exception they end in a "Hic Rhodus, hic salta" [loosely translated, "Here you must leap or retreat"]. They end at the steep escarpment of a message which cannot be avoided by any detour.

I believe that one can do justice to the seeker only if one leaves him under no illusions about the existence of a steep wall at which decisions must be made. He must be led to face the granite greatness of a message that brooks no evasion. (pp.x-xi, emphasis added)

This is what led Thielicke to preach a series of sermons on the Apostles' Creed:

I said to myself: If your conclusion is correct, then the wall to which you lead your hearers should be a steep as possible. and there is no forbidding wall of the Christian message that is more rugged and towering than the Apostles' Creed.

The monumental statements of the Apostles' Creed offer the extreme test of self-examination. Here we can find out whether we are willing to face the message of the gospel as a barrier and obstacle, and therefore whether we dare to put a stop to the endless circle of discussion and block up all the avenues of escape. Here it is not possible to build a road with cheap and easy grades. Here we are confronted not with the noncommittal presentation of an "essence of Christianity", but with brute facts, with statements like "born of the Virgin Mary", "descended into hell", "resurrection of the body". Either we succeed here in making it clear that this is what really concerns us, or we shall succeed nowhere. Hic Rhodus, hic salta! Here we must show our colours! (p.xi, emphasis added)